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In an effort to help the community
understand current basic concerns about civil rights, we have published
the following Civil Rights in Brief which summarize
these issues and can help you learn what you can do to protect them.
Since the 1960’s, access to higher
education has markedly improved for minorities in this country,
reaching a high point twenty years ago. African-Americans and Latinos
are going to college at higher rates. 1998 marked the 20th anniversary
of the Supreme Court’s Bakke decision, which provided the
legal backing for the use of race as one factor in admissions decisions
for the purpose of promoting diversity in higher education. Many
of this nation’s colleges and universities have made diversity
a goal for their campuses and adopted admissions policies that reflect
their commitment to creating a diverse educational environment.
Such affirmative action policies have opened the doors of selective
colleges and universities to many more minority students than would
otherwise attend.
Today, notwithstanding the remaining difficulty of
financing a college education, most students who finish high school
can attend at least a 2-year junior college. In the vast majority
of the country’s higher education institutions selectivity
is not an issue; public colleges and universities set their minimum
guidelines for admission and students who meet these standards are
granted admission. Similarly, many private colleges set their academic
guidelines, and those who meet the guidelines and can afford to
pay the tuition attend. Yet, the college one chooses to attend can
have a lasting impact.
Attending a selective college or university can influence
everything from finishing your degree to future career aspirations
and graduate education goals, increased earning potential, and many
other success measures. Not surprisingly, selective colleges and
competitive flagship universities often have to turn down many qualified
applicants. When the pool of applicants is greater than the freshman
class allows for, stricter guidelines for selection have to be drawn.
These are the schools where the affirmative action battle is focused.
While admissions policies differ among schools, most
institutions consider the following things to varying degrees: high
school grades, standardized test scores, and an applicant’s
personal background—race and ethnicity, socio-economic status,
geography, special talents and extra-curricular activities. What
has come increasingly under attack is the consideration of race
and ethnicity in making admissions decisions.
The progress of minorities in higher education is
currently severely threatened due 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, decided that race
was not any more relevant to higher education than "blood-type"
for universities to give it special consideration. This decision
effecting the states in the Fifth Circuit (Texas, Mississippi and
Louisiana) ended all considerations of race in admissions, recruitment,
and scholarships at the undergraduate and graduate school level
at all public institutions. In 1996, California voters passed Proposition
209—legislation which also eliminated affirmative action in
education, employment, and contracting throughout the state. Last
year Washington State adopted a similar referendum.
These attacks reverse efforts made by higher education
institutions to admit minority students after a history of exclusion.
In the nation’s two largest and most diverse states, these
attacks have already taken a toll. Minority enrollment at Texas
and California’s top universities has dropped substantially
since 1996, and fewer minorities are applying to the top public
universities in these states.
Many other legal and political battles are now being
waged against affirmative action. The University of Michigan, the
University of Michigan Law School, Georgia’s public universities,
and other institutions are being sued by applicants who argue that
they have been denied admission due to affirmative action policies.
These lawsuits are being supported and financed by a conservative
think-tank, The Center for Individual Rights. Several lower court
decisions at the K-12 level have also prevented schools from considering
race in admissions policies. A group of people in Florida is supporting
a ballot measure this year that aims to end affirmative action in
education and employment.
Standardized testing required for college and graduate
school entrance is often biased against minorities and low-income
students. These tests are over-relied on in the admissions process
and prove very little about graduation or future success. When merit
is primarily defined in terms of a test score, universities create
cut-off scores that have a very serious racial impact. The code
of ethics of the testing profession says that a single test should
never be used to decide a student’s capabilities and opportunities,
but that is often done. Evaluating applicants based on high school
grades and their full personal background and goals is a much more
fair and less biased way to predict future success in college.
Programs that use explicit classifications based on
race are subject to strict scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause
of the Fourteenth Amendment. If such racial classifications are
used then the state must prove that these policies serve a compelling
governmental interest, and that they are narrowly tailored to meet
that interest. In higher education cases, the compelling interest
is one that either (1) remedies past discrimination or (2) enhances
diversity in the student body.
Despite the Hopwood decision in the Fifth Circuit,
the 1978 Supreme Court case of University of California, Davis v.
Bakke is still the law of the land. In that important decision,
the court argued that diversity in higher education does serve a
compelling state interest. The diversity rationale upon which the
legal debate over affirmative action rests argues that race is an
important factor—among others—when considering who should
be admitted to the university. Despite the threats posed to affirmative
action by lower court decisions, until the Supreme Court hears another
affirmative action case, most colleges and universities are still
following the guidelines of Bakke, and are arguing that diversity
is an important part of their institution’s mission.
- The loss of affirmative action programs will increase segregation
in our country’s top universities and colleges. Diversity
is an important educational goal for all campuses and for all
students.
- The loss of affirmative action programs will increase segregation
in top graduate schools, and as a result, in certain professions,
such as law and medicine. How can doctors, lawyers, judges, or
CEO’s, serve an increasingly diverse America if their educational
environment is not inclusive of all people?
- After a history of exclusion of minorities from colleges and
universities, particularly by more competitive schools, policies
should be consistent with the commitment to further open the higher
education doors to underrepresented populations.
- Ending affirmative action is a dismissal of the fact that discrimination
still exists in our society. Remedies such as affirmative action
in college admission, and scholarships is one crucial remedy.
- The current rollbacks in affirmative action have also discouraged
minorities from applying to top schools, and to settle for second-rate
universities or junior colleges, thus creating a "chilling"
effect on minority applications to all schools.
- The over-reliance on standardized tests in the admissions process
hurts minority and low-income students, who traditionally do not
perform as well as white students from more affluent schools or
backgrounds. These tests have been proven to be racially and culturally
biased.
The Civil Rights Project has released one book titled,
Chilling Admissions:
The Affirmative Action Crisis and the Search for Alternatives
(1997) and will soon release another titled, Diversity
Challenged (1999) about affirmative action and the value
of diversity. Here is what some of our research says:
- Without considering race in the admissions process, campuses
cannot maintain the same level of diversity that they currently
have.
- Race-blind alternatives such as class-based affirmative action
will not yield the same level of racial diversity.
- University admissions offices, especially in states where affirmative
action has been outlawed, will have to broaden their definitions
of merit to include more than standardized test scores if they
want to admit more minorities.
- There is strong evidence of the benefits of diversity on educational
outcomes for all students—minority and white.
- Students who learn in a diverse setting are better prepared
to work in our society, a society that is becoming increasingly
multi-ethnic.
- Minorities are still severely under-represented in selective
schools and in certain professions.
- Minorities tend to be segregated in schools and tracks that
do not prepare them for college.
- Learn more about what affirmative action is and is not. It is
not about set-asides or different standards, but about equal opportunity.
Affirmative action is one important remedy for increasing the
presence of historically underrepresented groups in higher education
and in certain professions. Evidence shows that affirmative action
goals succeed and make large contributions.
- Challenge the language adopted by the media around this issue—for
example, the use of the word "preferences" suggests
unfair favors towards one group, when in fact affirmative action
was created to help underrepresented groups have the same access
to higher education that all Americans should have.
- Understand the admissions policies of your own state’s
flagship school and find out how they evaluate students for admission.
- Encourage minority students to keep applying to their top schools
despite the threats posed to affirmative action programs and the
hype about a drop in minority admissions.
- Question the use of standardized test scores to define merit,
and encourage admissions officials to broaden their evaluation
techniques.
- Alert people to the fact that discrimination and racism still
exists and abolishing programs such as affirmative action is premature
and can have damaging consequences.
- If you or someone you know has benefited from affirmative action
be proud and talk about the progress made by minorities through
such civil rights policies.
- Encourage all students, not just students of color, to stand
up for diversity and talk about how it has benefited their education.
If you are interested in purchasing a copy of Chilling
Admissions: The Affirmative Action Crisis and the Search for Alternatives
or Diversity Challenged:
Evidence on the Impact of Affirmative Action, please contact:
The Harvard Education Publishing Group
349 Gutman Library, 6 Appian Way
Cambridge, MA 02138
(800) 513-0763
E-mail: hepg@harvard.edu
http://gseweb.harvard.edu/~hepg/index.html
Contact a new nonpartisan consortium of six of America’s
leading civil rights legal organizations, Americans for a Fair Chance,
for fact sheets on affirmative action and a communications catalog.
Americans
for a Fair Chance
1730 Rhode Island Avenue, NW
Suite 303
Washington, D.C. 20036
Tel: (202) 822-9221
Fax: (202) 822-9267
To receive AFC publications via fax, call (800) 882-9064.
You may also download "The
Struggle to Keep College Doors Open" in PDF Format. 
Last updated 8/16/99
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