Are There Workable Alternatives to Affirmative Action?

October 26, 2017

Are There Workable Alternatives to Affirmative Action?

Ongoing legal and political struggles are central to major pending affirmative action lawsuits against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina. These cases were brought by the same group that twice unsuccessfully took the University of Texas case to the Supreme Court.  It is clear that these legal challenges will again assert there is a nonracial way to integrate our colleges. Meanwhile these challenges play out in a context where the great majority of highly competitive universities continue to recognize the powerful benefits of a diverse student body and learning experiences. This time the Trump Administration’s Department of Justice will be opposing the universities.

Since the courts -- as recently as the 2016 Fisher v. University of Texas II -- recognize that diversity is a compelling educational goal for campuses, a central question is whether or not there actually are any feasible nonracial ways to achieve this goal.

The Civil Rights Project worked with the Educational Testing Service to commission research papers from leading scholars that address this central question, but no credible alternatives were found to exist.

These studies, by Stella M. Flores, Catherine L. Horn, William C. Kidder, Patricia Gándara, Mark C. Long and Gary Orfield, not only provide the best up-to-date data but also remain important for the Court in considering this next set of legal cases.

The report, "Alternative Paths to Diversity: Exploring and Implementing Effective College Admissions Policies," was published by ETS this month and can be found on this site here.