In its 2023 decision in "Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard," the Supreme Court effectively ended its approval of affirmative action in higher education admissions, holding that practices at Harvard and the University of North Carolina (UNC) were unlawful. The Court concluded that UNC's practices violated the guarantee of equal…

Today, colleges and universities use overt admissions preferences to create student bodies that reflect the ethnic, racial, or gender demographics of the population--at the expense of academic merit and preparedness. While the original aim of the policy was to end discrimination and promote fairness, it has led to unequal treatment on the basis of…

There is an abundance of research on the college admissions process and the practices selective schools employ to evaluate and select students. Most findings are complex, nuanced, or conflicting. Less than a month after the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) ruled in "Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard" and "Students…

In the context of a long history of racial exclusion, policies designed to address racial inequalities continue to face strong opposition. This is especially true in the higher education sector, where there is strong resistance to efforts specifically designed to rectify racial discrimination (e.g., race-based affirmative action). This report…

The last several years have seen renewed debate over the role that race plays in higher education--a debate over "affirmative action." The report first considers "affirmative action" in its original sense: the "mandatory" race-conscious measures that the federal courts have imposed on "de jure" segregated…

Despite the popular belief that affirmative action gives Black and Latino students an unfair advantage, these students are still underrepresented at the nation's selective colleges and at two- and four-year public colleges and universities in the vast majority of states. The truth is, it isn't enough to just believe that racial inequality is a…

A principle responsibility of a board member is to understand the environment in which his or her institution operates. Today, that environment includes a host of legal risks that every institution of higher education must be prepared to assess and proactively address. Colleges and universities work to contain and manage those risks through such…

The idea that lawsuits can move a public as well as a legal agenda is not new. In recent years, conservatives have brought high profile lawsuits designed both to vindicate the rights of an individual plaintiff and to educate the public about an important issue. For example, lawsuits filed nearly 10 years ago against the University of Michigan's…

Many Asian Americans are accusing elite colleges, including the University of California system and Harvard University, of setting admission quotas. Colleges blame high school counselors for failing to encourage Asian students to develop verbal skills and to participate in extracurricular activities. (FMW)

This report examines the affirmative action attitudes of 204,103 college freshmen from 473 colleges and universities nationwide and from four racial/ethnic groups: Whites, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Mexican Americans. The study addresses how and why student support for affirmative action in higher education admissions depends on how…

In the wake of the Supreme Court's 2003 decision upholding admissions preferences, affirmative action remains a deeply divisive issue. This tendency to frame the argument over preferences in terms of fundamental values is common to both sides of the debate. Because the nation's history with respect to race is so painful, the resulting argument is…

A study examined the college and later-life experiences of over 35,000 students, almost 3000 of whom were black, entering 28 selective colleges in 1976 and 1989. Results suggest that if universities were flatly prohibited from considering race in admissions, over half the black students in selective colleges today would have been rejected.…

This pamphlet summarizes the legal requirements of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as they pertain to minority recruitment and admissions at colleges and universities which receive Federal assistance. It describes steps taken by some of these institutions to enhance the recruitment, admissions, and retention of minority students. Among…

This monograph summarizes discussions focusing on postsecondary diversity at two regional meetings attended by senior representatives of 22 state higher education agencies. The meetings addressed the effects of recent challenges to affirmative action and discussed the actions institutions are taking or are contemplating in the face of these…

Reviews eight recently published reports focusing on affirmative action in higher education. Discusses the following topics: (1) college admission policies; (2) minority student performance on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT); (3) school desegregation; and (4) minority group teachers. (FMW)