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We are committed to generating and synthesizing
research on key civil rights and equal opportunity policies that
have been neglected or overlooked.
Nineteen ninety-eight marked the 20th anniversary
of the Supreme Court's Bakke decision, which legally
upheld the consideration of race as a factor in admissions decisions
for
the purpose of promoting diversity in higher education. Such affirmative
action policies have opened the doors of selective colleges and
universities to many more minority students than might have otherwise
had opportunities.
While access to higher education has improved for
minorities in this country, that progress is currently severely
threatened due, in part, to a series of very serious
attacks on affirmative action. In 1996, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals,
in Hopwood v. University of Texas Law School, ended all
considerations of race in admissions, recruitment, and scholarships
at the undergraduate and graduate school level at all public institutions
under its jurisdiction (i.e., Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana).
In 1996, California voters passed Proposition 209-a ballot initiative
that also eliminated affirmative action in education, employment,
and contracting throughout the state. And, most recently, the University
of Michigan continues to face legal challenges to both its undergraduate
and law school admissions policies that give consideration to race/ethnicity.
Our current research interests related to affirmative
action in higher education include:
- Impacts of race-blind admissions on campus diversity
- The effectiveness of automatic admissions policies at creating
and maintaining a diverse student body
- Impacts
of affirmative action policies on the pipeline of students
moving from college to post-graduate education
Our most recent work related to affirmative action
in higher education includes:
- Two reports on alternative programs to affirmative action: Appearance
and Reality in the Sunshine State: The Talented 20 Program
in Florida, by
Patricia Marin, PhD, and Edgar K. Lee,
MPP, is a detailed analysis of Florida's Talented 20 program,
implemented when Governor Jeb Bush ended affirmative action in
state higher education admissions. The second study: Percent
Plans in College Admissions: A Comparative Analysis of Three
States' Experiences, by Catherine Horn, PhD and Stella M.
Flores, MPA, compares the experiences of Texas, California, and
Florida,
the three states with percent plans.
- Chilling Admissions: The Affirmative
Action Crisis and the Search for Alternatives, published
in 1998 by Harvard Education Publishing Group. This book focuses
on the interrelated questions of what the consequences for student
body diversity would be if race and ethnicity are eliminated as
factors in university admissions and whether non-racial criteria
exist that might be used in admissions and still do reasonably
well at achieving desired levels of both diversity and academic
preparedness.
- Diversity Challenged: Evidence
on the Impact of Affirmative Action, published in 2001
by The Civil Rights Project. This book contains several studies
on affirmative action's educational impacts, including a study
of students at the University of Michigan Law School and Harvard
Law School.
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