The U.S. Supreme Court this fall will hear arguments about whether colleges have the constitutional right in certain circumstances to consider race and ethnicity in admissions decisions. The case has the leaders of many colleges that do consider those factors worried about what they will do if the court rules against the University of Texas at Austin, whose rejection of a white woman led to the suit.
But a report released today by the American Council on Education — based in part on a survey of college admissions leaders — argues that the high-profile debates over what should be considered in admissions decisions don’t reflect the way most colleges actually go about diversifying their student bodies. A range of activities, many of them far less controversial and many of them race neutral, are at the heart of these diversity efforts, says the report, “Race, Class & College Access,” by Lorelle L. Espinosa, assistant vice president of ACE’s Center for Policy Research and Strategy; Matthew N. Gaertner, a senior research scientist at Pearson; and Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project at the University of California at Los Angeles.
Read more in Inside Higher Ed.