The Future of Affirmative Action - The Century Foundation

312 Pages·2014·3.13 MB·English

The Future of
Affirmative Action
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The Future of
Affirmative Action
New Paths to Higher Education Diversity
after Fisher v. University of Texas
Richard D. Kahlenberg, editor
A Project of Lumina Foundation
and The Century Foundation
The Century Foundation Press • New York
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About Lumina Foundation
Lumina Foundation is an independent, private foundation committed to increas-
ing the proportion of Americans with high-quality degrees, certificates and other
credentials to 60 percent by 2025. Lumina’s outcomes-based approach focuses
on helping to design and build an accessible, responsive and accountable higher
education system while fostering a national sense of urgency for action to achieve
Goal 2025.
About The Century Foundation
The Century Foundation conducts timely research and analyses of national eco-
nomic and social policy and international affairs. Its work today focuses on issues
of equity and opportunity in the United States, and how American values can
best be sustained and advanced in a world of more diffuse power. With offices in
New York City and Washington, D.C., The Century Foundation is nonprofit and
nonpartisan and was founded in 1919 by Edward A. Filene.
Board of Trustees of The Century Foundation
Bradley Abelow, Chairman Melissa Harris-Perry
Jonathan Alter Matina S. Horner
H. Brandt Ayers Lewis B. Kaden
Alan Brinkley Bob Kerrey
Joseph A. Califano, Jr. Alicia H. Munnell
Alexander Morgan Capron P. Michael Pitfield
Hodding Carter III Richard Ravitch
Edward E. David, Jr. Alan Sagner
Stephen Goldsmith Harvey I. Sloane, M.D.
Jacob Hacker Shirley Williams
Charles V. Hamilton William Julius Wilson
Janice Nittoli, President
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Available from the publisher upon request.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Cover design by Abby Grimshaw
Text design by Cynthia Stock
Copyright © 2014 by Lumina Foundation and The Century Foundation, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of The Century Foundation.
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Foreword
I
n the twentieth century, the American economy flour-
ished in part because we led the world in education.
As Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz write in The
Race between Education and Technology, by 1900, the
United States, unlike most other nations, had “begun to
educate its masses at the secondary level not just in pri-
mary school” and soon became the richest nation in the
world. Although implemented imperfectly, to be sure,
we sought to make education inclusive—tapping into the
talents of women, racial minorities, and low-income stu-
dents as well as white, middle-class males.
For a time, the United States also bolstered its eco-
nomic position by becoming a world leader in the pro-
portion of young people receiving an associate’s degree
or higher. But we have now fallen to fourteenth among
OECD nations, endangering our competitiveness in a
global economy where human capital drives innovation
and success.
Both Lumina Foundation and The Century Founda-
tion want to restore American leadership in higher edu-
cation. Lumina Foundation has committed itself to an
ambitious goal around which we focus all of our efforts:
v
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vi | FOREWORD
that 60 percent of Americans will have a high-quality postsecondary
degree, certificate, or other credential by 2025. Governors, business lead-
ers, and university presidents have all supported the notion of increasing
postsecondary attainment. So, too, has the Obama administration, sug-
gesting that two-year institutions should play a particularly prominent
role by producing 63 percent of the new degrees or credentials necessary.
We believe these goals cannot be reached unless American higher educa-
tion is both equitable and excellent, and prepares its citizenry to meet
current and future global needs.
To think through ways to improve community college outcomes, The
Century Foundation recently assembled a task force on community col-
leges, led by Eduardo Padròn and Anthony Marx. The task force’s report,
Bridging the Higher Education Divide: Strengthening Community Col-
leges and Restoring the American Dream, suggests that we must address
growing stratification among colleges and universities, as separate insti-
tutions for rich and poor are rarely equal.
With this new volume, The Future of Affirmative Action: New Paths to
Higher Education Diversity after Fisher v. University of Texas, Lumina
and Century have joined forces to address the issues of college completion
and stratification in an important subset of higher education institutions:
four-year colleges and universities that employ selective admissions.
Research suggests that attending a selective college increases a stu-
dent’s chances of attainment and success as an adult, particularly if he or
she comes from a low-income or minority household. As the U.S. student
population grows increasingly diverse, promoting racial, ethnic, and eco-
nomic inclusion at selective colleges is more important than ever.
Selective four-year institutions that engage in race-conscious affirma-
tive action programs represent a fairly narrow slice of the higher edu-
cation pie—about one-fifth of four-year colleges, according to Harvard
University’s Thomas Kane. But it matters who goes to these institutions
because they offer extraordinary opportunities for success and member-
ship in the American leadership class.
The June 2013 Supreme Court decision in Fisher v. University of Texas
decision poses a significant challenge for selective universities that wish to
remain racially and ethnically diverse. As the essays in this volume make
clear, universities cannot simply rely on the old ways of achieving diver-
sity and must think creatively about new solutions that offer concrete
evidence of diversity-related policies and practices designed to achieve
institutional equity and excellence.
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FOREWORD | vii
We were pleased to have brought together some of the leading minds
in American higher education to think through these issues on the heels
of the Fisher decision in August 2013. We hope this volume, which grew
out of those discussions, will be read closely by university administrators,
local, state, and federal policy makers, civil rights advocates, and mem-
bers of the philanthropic community.
Making higher education more equitable and inclusive, these essays
note, is both the right thing to do for individual students, and is the
right thing for our democracy. Our country cannot afford to leave any
talent behind.
Jamie P. Merisotis, President;
Holiday Hart McKiernan, Chief of Staff;
and Susan Johnson, Director of Equity and Inclusion;
Lumina Foundation
Janice Nittoli, President,
The Century Foundation
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Contents
Foreword v
Jamie P. Merisotis, Holiday Hart McKienrnan,
Susan Johnson, and Janice Nittoli
1 Introduction 1
Richard D. Kahlenberg
PART I. The Stakes: Why Racial Diversity Matters
and Why Socioeconomic Diversity Matters
2 Defining the Stakes
Why We Cannot Leave the Nation’s Diverse
Talent Pool Behind and Thrive 27
Nancy Cantor and Peter Englot
3 Promoting Economic Diversity
for College Affordability 35
Sara Goldrick-Rab
PART II. The Legal Challenge: The Meaning
of Fisher v. University of Texas
4 Emphasis Added
Fisher v. University of Texas and Its Practical
Implications for Institutions of Higher Education 43
Arthur L. Coleman and Teresa E. Taylor
ix
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x | CONTENTS
5 New Rules for Affirmative Action in Higher Education
A Practical Guide to Fisher v. University of Texas
for Colleges and Universities 57
Scott Greytak
PART III. State Experiences with Race-Neutral Strategies
6 Transitioning to Race-Neutral Admissions
An Overview of Experiences in States Where
Affirmative Action Has Been Banned 75
Halley Potter
7 Striving for Neutrality
Lessons from Texas in the Aftermath of Hopwood and Fisher 91
Marta Tienda
8 The Use of Socioeconomic Affirmative Action
at the University of California 99
Richard Sander
9 Converging Perils to College Access
for Racial Minorities
Examples of Responses that Work from
Washington State and New Jersey 110
Richard L. McCormick
10 Ensuring Diversity under Race-Neutral Admissions
at the University of Georgia 122
Nancy G. McDuff and Halley Potter
PART IV. Research on Promising Race-Neutral Strategies
11 Addressing Undermatch
Creating Opportunity and Social Mobility 133
Alexandria Walton Radford and Jessica Howell
12 Talent Is Everywhere
Using ZIP Codes and Merit to Enhance Diversity 145
Danielle Allen
13 Reducing Reliance on Testing to Promote Diversity 160
John Brittain and Benjamin Landy
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