The purpose of this paper is to document the indirect effects of the Texas Top Ten Percent Plan on professional school degrees awarded and to propose the far reach of the law as an alternative argument in support of race-conscious admissions policies challenged under the strict scrutiny standard. Designed around the two tests of strict scrutiny,…

An expected national ban on the consideration of race in college admissions will threaten the racial and ethnic diversity of students at selective colleges unless these colleges fundamentally alter their admissions practices. This report finds that selective colleges barred from considering race and ethnicity in their admissions decisions may be…

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between race/ethnicity and the college degree attainment of underrepresented racial minority (URM) students receiving a merit-aid scholarship. Using an institutional database from a highly selective public university, multiple statistical techniques were conducted to examine how degree…

Utilizing a critical raceclass theory of education, OiYan A. Poon and colleagues analyze interviews with Asian Americans who have publicly advocated for or against affirmative action and acknowledged how their understandings of racial capitalism informed their perspectives and actions. Limited research has considered Asian American subjectivity in…

Using a census sampling, this analysis evaluates the campus structures and practices that are predictive of a campus being affiliated with stakeholder legal advocacy regarding the Fisher Supreme Court affirmative action case of 2013. Findings reveal that a campus utilizing selective admissions operated as a sufficient, but not a necessary,…

With a decision pending in two lawsuits challenging race-conscious admissions practices at Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), many observers are predicting that the US Supreme Court will significantly limit, if not completely prohibit, the use of race in college and university admissions. However if the United…

Education is the value proposition that provides individuals the opportunity to become meaningful contributors to society, their community, and their immediate families. It is the calling card of personal achievement and individual intrinsic benefits. Education is about access and opportunity. Institutions continue to navigate strategies of access…

This article uses philosophical analysis to clarify the arguments and claims about racial discrimination brought forward in the recent legal challenges to affirmative action in higher education admissions. Affirmative action opponents have argued that elite institutions of higher education are using negative action against Asian American…

The Supreme Court has established the parameters within which universities can practice race-conscious affirmative action for college admissions in a series of decisions beginning in l978. The key issues concern the educational impact of campus diversity and whether or not it is necessary to give some consideration to students' race into order to…

This paper simulates a system of socioeconomic status (SES)-based affirmative action in college admissions and examines the extent to which it can produce racial diversity in selective colleges. Using simulation models, we investigate the potential relative effects of race- and/or SES-based affirmative action policies, alongside targeted,…

This essay discusses the contentious events leading to the decision by the University of California's Board of Regents to end affirmative action in admissions, hiring and contracting at the university in July 1995. This controversial decision provided momentum for California's passage of Proposition 209 the following year ending "racial…

We use the Critical Race Theory frameworks of interest convergence and divergence to critique the anti-affirmative action movement's co-option of Asian Americans. Past discussions of affirmative action and Asian Americans mainly concentrate on how Asian Americans are affected by affirmative action, whether positively or negatively. We demonstrate…

The challenges for increasing opportunities and college access for black students typically focus on the traditional barriers related to academic preparation, the racial gap in standardized test scores, and dropping out of high school. While these challenges remain, new and emerging challenges to college access are also important to discuss. They…

Through an analysis of relevant social science evidence, this article provides a deeper understanding of critical mass, a concept that has become central in litigation efforts related to affirmative action admissions policies that seek to further the educational benefits of diversity. We demonstrate that the concept of critical mass requires an…

In this study we examine trends in segregation by race and ethnicity in higher education from 1985 to 2013. We have three key findings. Over the past 30 years, students from different groups have attended college at increasingly similar rates; gaps are decreasing. But these decreases have been driven largely by large increases in minority student…