A product of prestige?: “Race unknown” and competitive admissions in the United States

2021 ◽  
pp. 147821032110435
Author(s):  
Karly S. Ford ◽  
Kelly Rosinger ◽  
Junghee Choi
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Race And Ethnicity ◽  
Missing Values ◽  
Policy Research ◽  
The United States ◽  
Law Schools ◽  
Institutional Processes ◽  
Campus Diversity ◽  
Undergraduate Enrollment ◽  
Selective Universities

Policy researchers have difficulty understanding stratification in enrollment in US higher education when race and ethnicity data are plagued by missing values. Students who decline to ethnoracially self-identify become part of a “race unknown” reporting category. In undergraduate enrollment, “race unknown” students are not randomly distributed and are highest among the most selective universities. In this “Policy Research Note,” we investigate these patterns at US law schools to understand if they are driven by selectivity. We find that the most competitive law schools, on average, report 8% of their students are race unknown, double the rate of other law schools. We argue that race unknown enrollment cannot be ignored when studying ethnoracial enrollments in higher education because it varies systematically by institutional type and may mask actual rates of ethnoracial diversity. We posit that the race unknown category is likely produced by a combination of individual and institutional processes. Individual applicants may resist disclosing their ethnoracial identities, perhaps because of a perceived threat to their chances of admission. Additionally, institutional actors may willfully ignore race unknown students (not following up upon enrollment) because this category may enhance the appearance of campus diversity by diminishing the percentages of students in over-represented ethnoracial groups. In this way, high rates of race unknown students may be a product of prestigious and highly competitive educational processes.

New Directions in Latino/a/x Histories of Education: Comparative Studies in Race, Language, Law, and Higher Education

2020 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 612-622
Author(s):  
Rosina Lozano
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Race And Ethnicity ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Student Activism ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Language Instruction ◽  
Historical Inquiry ◽  
Legal Cases

The twenty-first century has seen a surge in scholarship on Latino educational history and a new nonbinary umbrella term, Latinx, that a younger generation prefers. Many of historian Victoria-María MacDonald's astute observations in 2001 presaged the growth of the field. Focus has increased on Spanish-surnamed teachers and discussions have grown about the Latino experience in higher education, especially around student activism on campus. Great strides are being made in studying the history of Spanish-speaking regions with long ties to the United States, either as colonies or as sites of large-scale immigration, including Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines. Historical inquiry into the place of Latinos in the US educational system has also developed in ways that MacDonald did not anticipate. The growth of the comparative race and ethnicity field in and of itself has encouraged cross-ethnic and cross-racial studies, which often also tie together larger themes of colonialism, language instruction, legal cases, and civil rights or activism.

The Proliferation of Case Method Teaching in American Law Schools: Mr. Langdell's Emblematic “Abomination,” 1890-1915

2006 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce A. Kimball
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Professional Education ◽  
Legal Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Law School ◽  
Case Method ◽  
Law Schools ◽  
American Higher Education ◽  
American Law ◽  
Law Professors

Case method teaching was first introduced into American higher education in 1870 by Christopher C. Langdell (1826-1906) of Harvard Law School (HLS), where it became closely associated with—and emblematic of—a set of academic meritocratic reforms. Though regnant today, “the ultimate triumph of [Langdell's] system was not apparent” for many years. The vast majority of students, alumni, and law professors initially derided it as an “abomination,” and for two decades case method and the associated reforms were largely confined to Harvard. During the subsequent twenty-five years between 1890 and 1915, a national controversy ensued as to whether case method teaching—and the concomitant meritocratic reforms—would predominate in legal education and, ultimately, professional education in the United States.

Asian Americans and Education

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Chang
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
United States ◽  
Family Involvement ◽  
Asian Americans ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Race And Ethnicity ◽  
American Studies ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Cultural Economic

The communities that constitute the racialized category of Asian Americans consist of approximately 20 million people in the United States, or about 5% of the total population. About 20% or 4 million are of primary or secondary school age, and over 1.1 million are in higher education. Both in popular and academic discourse, “Asian American” generally refers to people who have ethnic backgrounds in South Asia (e.g., Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka), Southeast Asia (e.g., Cambodia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam), and East Asia (e.g., China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan). As “Asian American” is an umbrella term used to categorize a very diverse, heterogeneous, and transnational set of populations, Asian Americans as a group present various challenges to education and research in and about the United States. These challenges can concern paradigms of achievement, citizenship, family involvement, access (e.g., higher education, bilingual education), language and culture, race and ethnicity, and school community. In order to address these paradigmatic challenges, a great deal of scholarship has called for a disaggregation of the data on populations that fall under the pan-ethnic “Asian America” umbrella term, to gain a more nuanced and dynamic understanding of the many diverse populations and their historical, cultural, economic, and political experiences. To further address the problematic framing of Asian Americans in education and related fields, scholars have applied critical lenses to key tensions within conceptualization, policy, curriculum, and pedagogy. More recently, the notions of intersectionality and transnationalism have been generative in the study of Asian Americans, within not only educational research but also Asian American studies, which generally falls under the field of ethnic studies in the U.S. context, but has also been categorized under American studies, cultural studies, or Asian studies. While characterizations of Asian Americans as “the Model Minority” or “the Oppressed Minority” persist, the relevance of such static binaries has increasingly been challenged as the Asian American populations and migrations continue to diversify and increase.

Pathways to the Presidency: Biographical Sketches of Women of Color Firsts

2007 ◽  
Vol 77 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
CAROLINE SOTELLO VIERNES TURNER
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Native American ◽  
Leadership Development ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Race And Ethnicity ◽  
Women Of Color ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
University Presidents ◽  
The United States ◽  
Biographical Sketches

According to recent data, only 3 percent of all college and university presidents are women of color. While the numbers remain disturbingly low, some of these women of color are making history as the "first" of their gender, race, and ethnicity to become president of a public, baccalaureate degree–granting college or university. In this article, Caroline Sotello Viernes Turner presents biographical sketches of three of these women. They are acknowledged to be the first Mexican American, Native American, and Asian Pacific/Asian American women who are presidents of such colleges in the United States. Women from these respective racial and ethnic groups have become university presidents only recently. Using in-depth interviews and cross-case comparisons, the author examines the paths these women presidents have taken and how their narratives contribute important information about women of color in higher education administration. She asserts that from their stories we can learn about the "pathway to the presidency" these women have helped to forge, about the ways universities can help support the leadership development of women of color, and about how to foster leadership in other women of color who aspire to be college presidents. Turner concludes that these women of color "firsts" continue to make important contributions to the field of higher education, and to pave the way for other women.

scholarly journals Letter from the Editor

JCSCORE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Cristobal Salinas Jr.
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
United States ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Race And Ethnicity ◽  
The United States ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Research Articles

Welcome to our Spring 2021 issue of the Journal Committed to Social Change on Race and Ethnicity (JCSCORE). With great excitement, I write this reflection to introduce this Spring 2021 issue and provide an overview of JCSCORE’s highlights and accomplishments. Yet, in tandem with great excitement, I also sit with and reflect on the pain and trauma inflicted on Black, Indigenous, and People of Color by the ever-oppressive structures of racism, xenophobia, exploitation, war, and violence in the United States and globally. Since 2015, we have published six volumes, and this Spring 2021 issue, including research articles, creative scholarship, art, letters from the Editor(s), and NCORE Speakers’ monographs. These intellectually rigorous efforts contribute meaningfully in advancing scholarship and dialogues that promote race and ethnicity in higher education. In this letter from the Editor, I announce the top five most read articles and top five most cited articles.

scholarly journals 'I'll be there for you'-- Comparative Insights on First-Year Experience (FYE) Policies of Belonging in the 21st Century

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (Winter) ◽  
pp. 47-57
Author(s):  
Shelbee NguyenVoges
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Social Adjustment ◽  
Academic Skills ◽  
The United States ◽  
Postsecondary Institutions ◽  
First Year Experience ◽  
First Year ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Undergraduate Enrollment

In the last 40 years undergraduate enrollment across the United States has more than doubled, yet graduation rates remain practically unchanged (Complete College America 2012). Increased pressure placed on first-year experience as a policy and practice to carve a pathway with strategies for navigating higher education internationally is how institutions in the 21stcentury grapple with challenges of retaining, progressing, and graduating their students (Nutt and Calderon, 2009). Despite the availability of scholarship and pervasiveness of policy which include first-year experience (FYE) initiatives, or a multiplex of “intentional academic and co-curricular efforts within and across postsecondary institutions” to emphasize academic and social adjustment (Koch 2007, 23), higher education globally is somewhat divided on equitable, inclusive understandings, approaches, and implementation when it comes to placing imporance on social adjustment over academic skills in 21st century education contexts. 

scholarly journals “An Invented Archive”: The Disability History Museum

2007 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-155
Author(s):  
Laurie Block
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
United States ◽  
Race And Ethnicity ◽  
Minority Group ◽  
The United States ◽  
Sexual Preference ◽  
Academic Careers ◽  
History Museum ◽  
Disability History ◽  
Special Supplement

The September 2006 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education included a special supplement on “Diversity in Academic Careers.” It focused primarily on race and ethnicity; sexual preference received minimal attention. No references were made, however, to disability, although disabled Americans can be said to comprise the largest single “minority group” in the United States. Consider the following: according to the 2000 U.S. Census, 49.7 million people, representing 19.3 percent of the 257.2 million people aged five and older in the civilian noninstitutionalized population (or almost one in five U.S. residents), lives with some type of long-lasting condition or disability.

scholarly journals Affirmative Inaction: A Quantitative Analysis of Progress Toward “Critical Mass” in U.S. Legal Education

2021 ◽  
pp. 987
Author(s):  
Loren Lee
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
United States ◽  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Critical Mass ◽  
Legal Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Law School ◽  
Law Schools ◽  
The Supreme Court

Since 1978, the Supreme Court has recognized diversity as a compelling government interest to uphold the use of affirmative action in higher education. Yet the constitutionality of the practice has been challenged many times. In Grutter v. Bollinger, for example, the Court denied its use in perpetuity and suggested a twenty-five-year time limit for its application in law school admissions. Almost two decades have passed, so where do we stand? This Note’s quantitative analysis of the matriculation of and degrees awarded to Black and Latinx students at twenty-nine accredited law schools across the United States illuminates a stark lack of progress toward critical mass since Grutter and reveals the continued need for affirmative action in law school admissions.

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