It was helping manufacturing companies do what they could not have done without it. It was dealing with labor unions, whose seniority systems overwhelmingly favored white male workers. Small businesses also resented the paperwork. The extent of the corporate buy-in was put on dramatic display in , when the Supreme Court heard Grutter v. Bollinger, another admissions case, this one involving the University of Michigan Law School. They supported affirmative-action admissions because they wanted universities to produce educated people for a diversified workforce.
The Court voted to uphold the Michigan program, but it was a 5—4 decision. No sector is more committed to diversity than higher education is, but it has proved to be one of the stickiest areas for affirmative action, both legally and practically. Urofsky, perhaps because he is an academic, is more patient with the trouble that universities have had in achieving diversity than he is with the problems of labor unions, to which, in general, he is uncharitable.
It is true that probably the main reason Nixon promoted affirmative-action programs was to pit African-Americans against labor, both traditionally Democratic voting bases. And, by many accounts, he succeeded, and created Archie Bunker—the Reagan Democrat, a man who resents special government help for minorities. Still, the leadership of unions like the United Auto Workers, though sometimes fighting their own membership, were active in support of civil rights.
Higher education and unions have a similar problem when it comes to changing the demographics: we are dealing with a cake that cannot be unbaked. The undergraduate population turns over every four years, but the faculty turns over every forty years. When the new students arrive on campus, they often wonder where the professors of color are. The answer is: wait twenty years, and they will show up.
Even so, the lag in diversification between university faculties and their student bodies is striking. As late as , less than five per cent of all professors had African or Asian ancestry, and around eighty per cent were men. Schools like Harvard and Stanford have had trouble even getting to gender balance. In , women made up 1.
Even at Berkeley, which had been admitting women since , women made up just 5. Today, less than thirty per cent of all university faculty at Stanford are women, and seven per cent are classified as underrepresented minorities.
At Harvard, twenty-seven per cent of tenured faculty are women, and eight per cent are underrepresented minorities. On the other hand, student bodies, where race- and gender-conscious admissions policies can have an effect more quickly, have diversified.
In , eighty-three per cent of university students were white; in , fifty-seven per cent were white. The percentage of black students in that period increased from ten to fourteen; the percentage of students that the government categorizes as Hispanic increased from less than four to more than eighteen.
The percentage of black and Latinx graduates as opposed to enrollees also increased although graduation rates for both groups are lower than for whites. Did affirmative-action admissions help? Starting in the mid-nineties, opponents of affirmative action were able to get laws passed prohibiting the use of race in admissions at public universities in several states, including Michigan, Washington, and California.
The top public universities in those states tried to attract minority students by other means, but Urofsky says that the percentage of black and Hispanic students has dropped significantly. Do students admitted under affirmative-action criteria benefit from their educations?
Historically, black students as a group have tended to underperform academically—to get lower grades than their SAT scores predict. So do varsity athletes. As many writers have pointed out, when we are considering colleges and jobs, there is a pipeline problem. They went to the same high schools that their brothers did and most of them probably got better grades. The success of affirmative action in employment and university admissions has not eliminated the education and income gaps between whites and blacks.
Although the poverty rate for blacks and Hispanics has dropped some since , it is still more than double the rate for whites. Americans of color are starting from much farther behind. Millions never get on board a train that most whites were born on. The Supreme Court case that admissions offices rely on today is Regents of the University of California v. After failing to demonstrate that affirmative action hurts white students, they have changed tactics and began to promote the myth that helping some students of color access education results in discrimination against well-qualified Asian American students.
This harmful myth perpetuates inaccurate narratives of homogeneity in Asian American communities; disregards significant socio-economic differences between ethnicities; and ignores the stark intraracial disparities affirmative action helps to alleviate. This tactic is not new ; groups and individuals that seek to preserve unfair systems have long attempted to sow division in communities of color. Race-conscious admissions practices remain necessary in the fight for racial equity in higher education.
In this column, we explore five reasons to support affirmative action in college admissions. College enrollment and completion rates have risen significantly over the past four decades. However, students of color, especially black and Latinx students, are more underrepresented at selective universities today than they were 35 years ago.
In fact, a black student enrollment disparity exists at 45 of the 50 flagship state universities, meaning that the percentage of undergraduates who are black is lower than the percentage of high school graduates in that state who are black. For example, black students constituted 50 percent of — high school graduates in Mississippi , but were just Banning affirmative action only worsens this persistent problem.
For example, one study found that students of color experience a 23 percentage point decline in likelihood of admission to highly selective public colleges after an affirmative action ban goes into effect. While much progress has been made in recent decades, students of color still remain underrepresented on college campuses nationwide.
Prioritizing diversity and employing race-conscious admissions policies are critical for promoting equity in higher education. Diversity on college campuses enhances the educational experiences of students of all backgrounds.
These benefits may translate to better economic outcomes and, among other payoffs, prepare students to work in a diverse global economy , increasing the productivity, effectiveness, and creativity of teams. Institutions of higher education have placed a greater priority on integration and campus diversity in recent decades.
White women may have been among the greatest beneficiaries of this effort. Between and , female college enrollment more than doubled —from 19 percent of all students to 44 percent.
This was landmark legislation prohibiting employment discrimination by large employers over 15 employees , whether or not they have government contracts. President Lyndon B. Johnson issued E. President Johnson amended E. Federal contractors now required to make good-faith efforts to expand employment opportunities for women and minorities. Nixon, issued Order No. President Nixon issued E. The Nixon administration issued "Memorandum-Permissible Goals and Timetables in State and Local Government Employment Practices," distinguishing between proper goals and timetables and impermissible quotas.
The U. Supreme Court in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, U. At the same time, it also ruled unlawful the University Medical School's practice of reserving 18 seats in each entering class of for disadvantaged minority students.
President Jimmy Carter issued E. Weber, U. President Ronald Reagan issued E. Efforts by some in the Reagan administration to repeal Executive Order were thwarted by defenders of affirmative action, including other Reagan administration officials, members of Congress from both parties, civil rights organizations and corporate leaders. EEOC, U. The Supreme Court ruled in Johnson v. Johnson and Richard Nixon both passed executive orders to end race discrimination in hiring.
Johnson's order told contractors to "take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Soon, colleges voluntarily adopted similar policies to combat racial discrimination. In , many elite universities admitted more than twice as many Black students as they had the year before. This change was directly linked to the civil rights movement.
With civil rights activists urging schools to admit more Black applicants, colleges responded. Higher education had been almost exclusively white for most of its history , but a growing number of universities were now crafting affirmative action policies in an effort to expand access to higher education.
The current president of Columbia University, Lee Bollinger, joined the institution's law school back in Despite its rising popularity, affirmative action college policies quickly triggered a backlash, particularly among white applicants. When admissions offices began admitting more Black students, white applicants claimed they were the victims of "reverse discrimination.
Robert L. Kirkpatrick Jr. The answer is no. I think we were instinctively trying to do the right thing. Early legal challenges contributed to a shared negative perception of affirmative action among U. The first legal challenge came in , just two years after schools began adopting affirmative action policies. A white student named Marco DeFunis filed a lawsuit against the University of Washington Law School, citing reverse racism as the reason for his rejection.
By the time the case reached the Supreme Court, DeFunis was just one semester away from earning his law degree, leading them to ultimately dismiss the case. These early legal challenges created a negative perception of affirmative action. In , Harvard's associate dean of admissions, David L.
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