In 1998, the year a voter-approved measure barring the use of race-conscious admissions policies for public colleges and universities in California took effect, the percentage of Black, Hispanic and Native American students admitted at two of the state’s elite public schools plummeted by more than 50%.
Those figures for UCLA and the University of California, Berkeley offer a cautionary tale as administrators at schools around the United States await a Supreme Court decision due by the end of June that is expected to prohibit affirmative action student admissions policies nationwide.
That potential outcome in cases involving Harvard University and the University of North Carolina has brought new urgency to efforts by schools to maintain or increase racial and ethnic diversity in their student populations, according to interviews with senior administrators at a dozen colleges and universities.
“We cannot afford as a nation to regress on our goals to create an educated and equitable society,” said Seth Allen, head of admissions at Pomona College in California. “So it’s incumbent on higher education to figure out how to work collectively together to ensure that we’re not furthering the enrollment gap among different groups of students.”
Many selective U.S. colleges and universities for decades have used some form of affirmative action to boost enrollment of minority students, seeing value in having a diverse student population not only to offer educational opportunity but to bring a range of perspectives onto campuses.
Affirmative action refers to policies that favor people belonging to certain groups considered disadvantaged or subject to discrimination, in areas such as hiring and student admissions.
Schools are exploring numerous options. Administrators said they are drafting strategies to expand their recruitment of diverse applicants, remove application barriers and increase the rate of minority students who accept their admissions offers.
An…
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