Whether employers may inquire about an individual's past criminal history has gained attention in state policy arenas. In 2016 the Department of Education issued a report encouraging higher education institutions across the United States to forgo inquiring about criminal history on college admissions applications. To date, research on ban the box policies has been limited to understanding the impacts on employment. This dissertation aims to better understand the landscape and factors associated with ban the box policy adoption in higher education. To address the research questions data was collected across 50 states from 2016-2022 related to status of ban the box policy adoption, state criminal legal factors, state higher education factors, and state and federal political and demographic factors. In order to gain a better understanding of the landscape of state higher education ban the box policy adoption a series of descriptive analyses were conducted to address the status of policy adoption and the year of policy adoption. Using qualitative thematic analysis, the language of policy adoption was also analyzed resulting in three major themes (1) policy expands access but restricts involvement in college; (2) regulations limiting access for professions in need; and (3) gatekeeping via conviction type. To address the second research question exploratory descriptive analysis was used to understand what factors are associated with ban the box policy adoption. Using mean values and mean differences, a series of factors were associated with ban the box policy adoption including the demographic make-up of a state's incarcerated population, a state's college-going population, higher education governance models in a state, and state governor and legislature political party control. This dissertation is the first known study that explores the landscape of higher education ban the box policy adoption and analyzes factors that are associated with policy adoption in a state. The findings are relevant to state policy adoption, policy decision-making related to system-involved people, and future research on ban the box policy adoption in higher education. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]