The college access debate in America remains an important one. Affirmative action policies and practices continue to occupy a significant sub-component of the overall college access discussion. Recent legal debates and policy changes pertaining to affirmative action have encouraged analysis surrounding the overall viability and fairness of these…

While women have made many advances, their inferior status to men continues to be a global phenomenon. At a time of unprecedented economic growth, India is experiencing a dramatic intensification of violence against women and the majority of girls are still not getting equal educational opportunity. In one of the most important steps for the…

Affirmative action in college admissions was effectively banned in Texas by the Hopwood ruling in 1997, by voter referenda in California and Washington in 1996 and 1998, and by administrative decisions in Florida in 1999. The "Hopwood" and "Johnson" rulings also had possible applicability to public colleges throughout Alabama,…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to address its drastic socioeconomic inequality and to compel its higher education institutions to diversify significantly while democratizing access to those schools. Brazil recently passed a sweeping affirmative action law requiring its public universities to reserve half of their available spots for…

The argument that cultural and other forms of diversity enhance the educational experience of all students is generally associated with post-1960 efforts to expand the presence of disadvantaged groups on the campuses of America's universities and colleges. Yet, in the case of UC Berkeley, arguments on the merits of cultural diversity have much…

Critical content analysis is used to identify content within blogs, exposing views within academe that reinforce and normalize racist, sexist, and interactively racist and sexist perspectives. The two themes explored here are unfairness and subjectivities within personnel processes and the qualifications of Black women faculty, as raised through a…

In this article, I argue (1) affirmative action diverts attention from more urgent needs of racial justice in education--better quality K-12 education, and better quality and more accessible public higher education; (2) the increasing wealth of students at affirmative action institutions is a sign of diminished quality of those students compared…

At Middlebury College--and on campuses throughout the country--class is coming out of the closet. Long hidden from view, economic status is emerging from the shadows, as once-taboo discussions are taking shape. The growing economic divide in America, and on American campuses, has given rise to new student organizations, and new dialogues, focused…

Immediately after President Obama's successful campaign, many hypothesized that the United States had entered a post-racial era. This study uses critical race theory to examine how high-achieving Black and Latinx college students make meaning of and navigate affirmative action policy discourses in an era of colorblind racial politics.…

Before Heman Sweatt, an African-American from Houston, won his lawsuit to attend the University of Texas (UT) School of Law, Carlos Cadena, a Mexican-American from San Antonio, was among its brightest students. Cadena graduated summa cum laude from the law school in 1940, a decade before Sweatt's lawsuit forced UT to open its graduate and…

In signing off the majority opinion in "Grutter v. Bollinger," Justice Sandra Day O'Connor opined, "That 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today" (2003, p. 342). The Supreme Court's acceptance of "Fisher v. University of Texas," however, may signal an end to affirmative…

The Supreme Court's members generally are too decorous to exclaim "I told you so." But U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy stands perched on the edge of an I-told-you-so moment, thanks to the court's decision to take up a challenge to a race-conscious college-admission policy that poses some of the same questions he had accused…

How does education affect racial attitudes? Past studies focus almost exclusively on whites' attitudes toward blacks, neglecting important minority populations. This study extends previous research by analyzing the effects of education on beliefs about racial stereotypes, discrimination, and affirmative action policies among whites, Asians,…

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…

What explains the rise of race-conscious affirmative action policies in undergraduate admissions? The dominant theory posits that adoption of such policies was precipitated by urban and campus unrest in the North during the late 1960s. Based on primary research in a sample of 17 selective schools, we find limited support for the dominant theory.…