The Origins of Race-conscious Affirmative Action in Undergraduate Admissions

2013 ◽  
Vol 87 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa M. Stulberg ◽  
Anthony S. Chen
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Undergraduate Admissions

From Discrimination to Affirmative Action

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucas A. Powe
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Court Case ◽  
Board Of Education ◽  
Action Program ◽  
Primary Case ◽  
Undergraduate Admissions ◽  
University Of Texas ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Supreme Court Case ◽  
The University

This chapter discusses the legal battles involving the University of Texas School of Law and its affirmative action program. In the wake of its success in 1944 in the all-white primary case, Smith v. Allwright, the Texas NAACP called for the integration of Texas's flagship university in Austin. Some months later Thurgood Marshall wrote a letter to Austin's only African American lawyer asking for information about how to apply to the UT School of Law. The chapter examines the Supreme Court case of Heman Marion Sweatt that produced a major stepping-stone toward Brown v. Board of Education, along with another case involving UT's undergraduate admissions that reaffirmed a state's right to implement affirmative action policies. In particular, it analyzes McLaurin v. Regents and Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, along with the Texas legislature's response to Hopwood v. Texas in the form of the “10% rule.”

scholarly journals When Affirmative Action Disappears: Unexpected Patterns in Student Enrollments at Selective U.S. Institutions, 1990–2016

2021 ◽  
pp. 233264922110086
Author(s):  
Prabhdeep Singh kehal ◽  
Daniel Hirschman ◽  
Ellen Berrey
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Black Student ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
First Year ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
Undergraduate Admissions ◽  
Enrollment Trends ◽  
Admissions Policy ◽  
Selective Institutions

Discussions of U.S. affirmative action policy assume that considering race in undergraduate admissions increases Black and Latinx student enrollments. We show that this assumption that affirmative action is linked to Black and Latinx student enrollments holds true for higher-status colleges and universities, but not institutions across the field of higher education. We use fixed effects modeling to analyze the association between a stated affirmative action admissions policy and enrollment trends for first-year students of different racialized backgrounds between 1990 and 2016 at 1,127 selective institutions. We find that, at the most selective institutions, stated policy usage was associated with increased Black student enrollments. However, at less selective institutions, policy usage was associated with decreased Black student enrollments and increased Non-U.S. resident enrollments. We also identify close-to-zero estimates of this relationship for enrollment trends of additional demographic backgrounds. We use these findings to elaborate the role of field-level status dynamics in racialized organizations theory. Paradoxically, U.S. American higher education’s contemporary racialized status order roughly consists of higher-status institutions that consider race in admissions but do not enroll racially heterogeneous cohorts, middle-status institutions that do not consider race but enroll racially heterogeneous cohorts, and lower-status non-selective institutions that enroll disproportionately high numbers of Black, Indigenous, and Latinx students.

scholarly journals Affirmative Action and the Quality–Fit Trade-off

2016 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Arcidiacono ◽  
Michael Lovenheim
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Student Performance ◽  
Undergraduate Education ◽  
College Major ◽  
Law School ◽  
Underrepresented Minorities ◽  
Law Schools ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Undergraduate Admissions ◽  
Education And Law

This paper reviews the literature on affirmative action in undergraduate education and law schools, focusing especially on the trade-off between institutional quality and the fit between a school and a student. We discuss the conditions under which affirmative action for underrepresented minorities (URM) could help or harm their educational outcomes. We provide descriptive evidence on the extent of affirmative action in law schools, as well as a critical review of the contentious literature on how affirmative action affects URM law-school student performance. Our review then discusses affirmative action in undergraduate admissions, focusing on the effects such admissions preferences have on college quality, graduation rates, college major, and earnings. We conclude by examining the evidence on “percent plans” as a replacement for affirmative action. (JEL I23, I26, I28, J15, J31, J44, K10)

Gratz v. Bollinger

2020 ◽  
pp. 215-242
Author(s):  
Matthew Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
University Of Michigan ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Undergraduate Admissions ◽  
Business Interests ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Selective Incorporation ◽  
The University

This chapter studies Gratz v. Bollinger, which challenged the racially attentive undergraduate admissions practices of the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts in the University of Michigan (UM). Grutter v. Bollinger, which challenged the Law School's admissions practices, was filed soon thereafter. These cases put UM on a crash course with the Supreme Court. The chapter then highlights UM's defense of affirmative action, showing how the university's co-optation of racial justice aligned with the rightward shift of the Supreme Court since the 1980s. UM leaders' preference for diversity over the social justice rationale, their discomfort with enrollment targets, their efforts to make affirmative action serve business interests, and their selective incorporation of social science that promoted the benefits of interracial contact all made UM's chances of swaying at least one conservative justice more likely.

scholarly journals The Partial Deinstitutionalization of Affirmative Action in U.S. Higher Education, 1988-2014

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Hirschman ◽  
Ellen Berrey
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Affirmative Action ◽  
State Level ◽  
Colleges And Universities ◽  
Private Institutions ◽  
Organizational Policy ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Undergraduate Admissions ◽  
Admissions Policies ◽  
The Status

Race-conscious admissions policies are politically controversial yet pragmatically effective for improving access for people of color to selective U.S. colleges and universities. While the admissions policies of elite institutions get the most political, scholarly, and media attention, little is known about the use of affirmative action in admissions across the broader field of selective higher education. Based on analysis of longitudinal panel data of almost 1,000 selective status colleges and universities, we find a dramatic shift in stated organizational policy starting in the mid-1990s. In 1994, 60% of institutions publicly declared that they considered race in undergraduate admissions; by 2014, just 35% did. Yet there is substantial variation depending on schools’ status (competitiveness) and sector (public or private). Notably, race-conscious admissions remain the stated organizational policy of almost all of the most elite public and private institutions. The retreat from race-conscious admissions occurs largely among schools relatively lower in the status hierarchy: very competitive public institutions and competitive public and private institutions. These patterns are not explained by the implementation of state-level bans. The findings suggest that both the diversity imperative and the diffuse impact of the anti-affirmative action movement are not consistent across strata of American higher education.

Affirmative Action and Leadership Attitudes in Brazilian Women Managers

2011 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 139-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gazi Islam ◽  
Sarah E. S. Zilenovsky
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Women Managers ◽  
Psychological Effects ◽  
Preferential Selection ◽  
Justice Perceptions ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Relationship

This note examines the relationship between affirmative action (AA) program perceptions and women’s self-ascribed capacity and desire to become leaders. We propose that women who believe that their organization implements a program of preferential selection toward women will experience negative psychological effects leading to lowered self-expectations for leadership, but that this effect will be moderated by their justice perceptions of AA programs. We test this proposition empirically for the first time with a Latin American female sample. Among Brazilian women managers, desire but not self-ascribed capacity to lead was reduced when they believed an AA policy was in place. Both desire’s and capacity’s relationships with belief in an AA policy were moderated by justice perceptions.

Affirming Affirmative Action

1990 ◽  
Vol 35 (8) ◽  
pp. 797-798
Author(s):  
Phyllis A. Katz
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action
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