Action In College Admissions Research Articles

Diversity in Plastic Surgery and the 2023 US Supreme Court Decision.

The number of publications on the topic of diversity, equity, and inclusion in plastic surgery has increased exponentially in the last 5 years. Numerous changes have been implemented. On June 29, 2023, the US Supreme Court ruled that affirmative action in college admissions is unconstitutional. Writing for the majority, Justice Roberts concluded that eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it, and the Equal Protection Clause applies without regard to any differences of race, of color, or of nationality. Justice Thomas authored a concurrence, stating that such policies are contrary to our colorblind constitution and our nation's equality ideal. Justice Sotomayor was joined by Justice Kagan and Justice Jackson in their dissenting opinion that ignoring race will not equalize a society that is racially unequal and that students of various racial backgrounds can offer different perspectives because of that identity. The reaction was largely partisan. Michelle Steel and Young Kim, Republican Asian American Congresswomen from California, lauded the decision, along with Republican Senator Tim Scott from South Carolina. Senate Majority Leader Democrat Chuck Schumer opined that the Supreme Court decision has put a "giant roadblock in our country's march toward racial justice." Cory Booker, New Jersey Democrat, called the decision a devastating blow. President Joe Biden and former First Lady Michelle Obama also disagreed with the decision. Profound ramifications across our institutions of higher learning and in medical specialties are likely to follow. Legally, it will be difficult or impossible to defend race-based preferences going forward. This is true regardless of whether such policies were put in place with the best of intentions.

Diversity in Education: The U.S. Supreme Court Got It Wrong

ABSTRACT Diversity has repeatedly been shown to be a vital part of education. This paper explores the benefits and importance of diversity in education and presents studies and supporting research. In the case Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, the United States Supreme Court found that race-based affirmative action in college admissions is unconstitutional because it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which prohibits discrimination based on race. As colleges and universities are trying to be more inclusive and varied, the Supreme Court’s finding just made it more difficult for colleges to secure a diverse population which will hurt education and likely lead to an adverse outcome for society. Diversity has many important benefits and is especially advantageous in education. Diversity increases creativity, critical thinking, helps reduce achievement gaps, and improves academic performance, student motivation, and intellectual engagement. Increasing diversity can increase empathy, appreciation of other cultures, and can help create a sense of community on campus. It can also help create inclusive attitudes and respect for others, can aid in removing biases and stereotypes, and can help prepare students for careers in an increasingly interconnected world. When weighing the benefits of diversity against what is actually written in the law, it seems the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court made the wrong decision.

Helping High-Achieving, Low-Income, Black Students Gain Admission Into America’s Elite Colleges: Considerations for School Counselors

The recent decision by the United States Supreme Court to limit affirmative action in college admissions could make it even more challenging for academically talented students of color to gain access to competitive schools. The importance of school counselors in guiding and supporting these students is now more crucial than ever. This qualitative study aimed to determine what school counselors need to know, do, and believe to help academically talented, Black students from low-income households gain admission into highly selective colleges and universities. Three broad themes and 10 subthemes emerged from the data analysis. The themes were (a) knowledge and awareness, (b) mindsets and beliefs, and (c) habits and practices. Implications for school counselor practice, training, and research are discussed.

Advancing Diversity in Microbiology: A 55-Year Retrospective Analysis.

Background For over 50 years, affirmative action helped advance equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in educational institutions in the United States (U.S.). However, the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision to end affirmative action in college admissions threatens the progress toward EDI. Objective This study aimed to assess the progress in promoting gender and racial diversity within the discipline of microbiology over a 55-year period. We sought to analyze the representation of women and minority groups in faculty ranks, tenure positions, and leadership to identify disparities and trends and determine who will likely be impacted most with the end of affirmative action. Materials and methods This longitudinal retrospective study utilized publicly available and non-identifiable Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) data on full-time microbiology faculty from 1967 to 2021. Faculty members were categorized based on academic ranks and tenure status, while gender and racial data were also considered. Results The analysis revealed a consistent dominance of white faculty, with over 60% representation across all academic ranks throughout the study period. The Asian and female faculty representation decreased in senior academic ranks. We observed a positive trend in the annual increase of women in faculty positions, academic ranks, chairs, and tenure positions. Furthermore, Asian faculty demonstrated the most robust surge in representation. However, disparities persisted for black, Hispanic, and Native American faculty members, reflecting broader challenges in their representation. Discussion Although efforts to enhance diversity within microbiology have yielded positive results, underrepresented minority groups still face obstacles in attaining leadership positions and senior academic ranks. The diminishing proportion of women at higher academic ranks raises concerns about potential attrition or lack of promotion opportunities. The end of affirmative action poses a risk of perpetuating this trend, leading to a decline in diversity among microbiology faculty.

End of Affirmative Action-Who Is Impacted Most? Analysis of Race and Sex Among US Internal Medicine Faculty.

For over 50 years, the United States (US) used affirmative action as one strategy to increase diversity in higher education including medical programs, citing benefits including training future public and private sector leaders. However, the recent US Supreme Court ending affirmative action in college admissions threatens advancements in the diversity of medical college faculty. Our study evaluated the demographic trends in Internal Medicine (IM) faculty in the US by assessing sex and race/ethnicity diversity to investigate who is likely to be impacted most with the end of affirmative action. Longitudinal retrospective analysis SUBJECTS: IM faculty from the Association of American Medical Colleges faculty roster from 1966 to 2021 who self-reported sex and ethnicity MAIN OUTCOMES: The primary study measurement was the annual proportion of women and racial/ethnic groups among IM faculty based on academic rank and department chairs. Although racial/ethnic diversity increased throughout the era of affirmative action, African American, Hispanic, and American Indian populations remain underrepresented. White physicians occupied > 50% of faculty positions across academic ranks and department chairs. Among the non-White professors, Asian faculty had the most significant increase in proportion from 1966 to 2021 (0.6 to 16.6%). The percentage of women increased in the ranks of professor, associate professor, assistant professor, and instructor by 19.5%, 27.8%, 25.6%, and 26.9%, respectively. However, the proportion of women and racial/ethnic minority faculty decreased as academic rank increased. Despite an increase in the representation of women and racial/ethnic minority IM faculty, there continues to be a predominance of White and men physicians in higher academic ranks. With the end of affirmative action, this trend has the danger of being perpetuated, resulting in decreasing diversity among IM faculty, potentially impacting patient access and health outcomes.

Second Chance Pell sets the stage for rapid expansion of prison college programs

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Higher education is in need of some good news. The Supreme Court has struck down affirmative action in college admissions and nixed President Biden's expansive idea to cancel $400 billion of student debt. Polls constantly show the public's faith in the importance of higher education is sliding, and to top it off, an enrollment cliff is imminent.

Second Chance Pell sets the stage for rapid expansion of prison college programs

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Higher education is in need of some good news. The Supreme Court has struck down affirmative action in college admissions and nixed President Biden's expansive idea to cancel $400 billion of student debt. Polls show ongoing deterioration of the public's faith in the importance of higher education, and to top it off, an enrollment cliff is imminent.

Second Chance Pell sets the stage for rapid expansion of prison college programs

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Higher education is in need of some good news. The Supreme Court has struck down affirmative action in college admissions and nixed President Biden's expansive idea to cancel $400 billion of student debt. Polls constantly show the public's faith in the importance of higher education is sliding, and to top it off, an enrollment cliff is imminent.

What Constitutes Fair Treatment of Asian American Applicants?

Today’s challengers of affirmative action in university admissions allege that these policies discriminate against Asian Americans. However, this focus detracts from a more just and effective locus of intervention: admissions disparities between white and Asian American applicants. Notably, defenders of affirmative action err when they reject claims of discrimination against Asian Americans by pointing to differences in facially neutral characteristics between white and Asian American applicants to explain away these admissions disparities. They fail to recognize how these differences in facially neutral factors between white and Asian American applicants resultfrom legacies of racial injustice.To avoid this error, this Article draws on anti-subordination and sociological literature to posit that identifying unfair treatment against Asian American applicants is fundamentally a normative issue. The question of whether the admissions disparities between white and Asian American applicants evince discrimination will never be settled without grappling with which facially neutral criteria can fairly and legitimately explain these disparities. An inquiry into the fairness of facially neutral criteria must consider how such criteria build on the subordination of Asian Americans. To concretize this inquiry, this Article uses the analyses and data from SFFA v. Harvard to examine the fairness of certain facially neutral criteria that contribute to admissions disparities between white and Asian American applicants, criteria that scholars have neglected to consider. These admissions factors are parental occupation, declared career interests, and additional preferences for legacy applicants. This Article then seeks to invigorate a public conversation about the complex considerations that undergird labeling admissions criteria unfair. It concludes by suggesting possible reforms to admissions schemes based on how these public deliberations may unfold.

Income-Based Affirmative Action in College Admissions

Abstract We study whether college admissions should implement quotas for lower-income applicants. We develop an overlapping-generation model and calibrate it to data from Brazil, where such a policy is widely implemented. In our model, parents choose how much to invest in their child’s education, thereby increasing both human capital and likelihood of college admission. We find that, in the long run, the optimal income-based affirmative action increases welfare and aggregate output. It improves the pool of admitted students, but distorts pre-college educational investments. The welfare-maximising policy benefits lower- to middle-income applicants with income-based quotas, while higher-income applicants face fiercer competition in college admissions. The optimal policy reduces intergenerational persistence of earnings by 5.7% and makes nearly 80% of households better off.

Moral intuitions and attitudes towards affirmative action in college admissions

Affirmative action has long been a contentious issue in the United States. Using data from a 2021 national YouGov sample of 1125 U.S. adults, we are the first to examine the effect of moral intuitions on people's support for affirmative action in college admissions. We find that those with strong individualizing moral intuitions—a heightened general concern with avoiding harm and mistreatment of people—are more likely to support affirmative action. We find that its effect is mediated in large part by beliefs in the extent of systemic racism, as those with strong individualizing moral intuitions are more likely to also believe that systemic racism is pervasive, and also partly by low levels of racial resentment. Conversely, those with strong binding moral intuitions—a heightened concern with the cohesion of social groups—are less likely to support affirmative action. This effect is also mediated by belief in the extent of systemic racism and racial resentment, as those with strong binding moral intuitions are more likely to believe both that the system is fair and have higher levels of racial resentment. Our study suggests that future work should consider the role of moral intuitions in shaping people's views of contentious social policies.

Replication package for: "Income-Based Affirmative Action in College Admissions"

Replication package for: "Income-Based Affirmative Action in College Admissions"

Next on the Chopping Block: The Litigation Campaign against Race-Conscious Policies Beyond Affirmative Action in University Admissions

Next on the Chopping Block: The Litigation Campaign against Race-Conscious Policies Beyond Affirmative Action in University Admissions

A New Supreme Court Challenge to Affirmative Action in University Admissions

This Viewpoint discusses upcoming cases regarding affirmative action to be heard by the Supreme Court and the affects the Court’s ruling could have on higher education and the composition of the physician workforce.

Bakke Redux - Affirmative Action and Physician Diversity in Peril.

This article examines the legal arguments that may lead the Supreme Court to overrule precedent and strike down affirmative action in university admissions. Given the critical importance of a diverse physician workforce for our Nation's health care system, the potential reversal of affirmative action admission programs in medical schools may have severe negative consequences. This article discusses the implications for health care should the Court issue an opinion restricting or eliminating affirmative action in higher education.

Reckoning with Asian America and the New Culture War on Affirmative Action*

The latest battle over affirmative action in university admissions may soon reach the U.S. Supreme Court, and a ruling in the plaintiff’s favor will end affirmative action in higher education across the nation. Asian Americans have taken center stage in this new culture war, fueled by the reigning narrative that they are victims of the policy who are unjustly penalized because of their race in spite of their competence. Opponents of affirmative action have effectively wielded competence—and more specificallyhyper‐competence—to mark moral deservingness as they push to retreat from race in the name of merit. The onset of Covid‐19, however, has laid bare this impossibility for Asian Americans as the surge of hate incidents has affected one in eight Asian American adults in 2020, underscoring that presumed competence is no shield from xenophobia, and moral deservingness is no protection from anti‐Asian hate. This project highlights how U.S. immigration law, science, and medicine do more than reflect social constructions of race, merit, and moral deservingness; they also produce and reproduce them. I close by arguing that reckoning with Asian America enables us to dismantle the tropes that propel the latest culture war on affirmative action, equips us to rewrite narratives about merit and moral deservingness, and invites us to re‐imagine the linked fate and linked futures of Asian Americans and other minoritized groups.

HUMBLE PIE IS COLD COMFORT Comment on M. Sandel’s The Tyranny of Merit

HUMBLE PIE IS COLD COMFORT Comment on M. Sandel’s <i>The Tyranny of Merit</i>

HOW MERITOCRACY FUELS INEQUALITY—PART II Reply to Critics

HOW MERITOCRACY FUELS INEQUALITY—PART II Reply to Critics

Asian American Perceptions of Affirmative Action

Confusion regarding affirmative action programs combined with ambiguous and secretive college admission processes have generated a growing resentment amongst the Asian American community specifically in the ways that they view other racial and ethnic minorities. Although affirmative action is popularly believed to disadvantage Asian Americans, this paper makes the case that the false narrative of affirmative action is more harmful to Asian Americans than affirmative action programs themselves because of how these misconceptions generate intense divisions within the Asian American community. After a brief personal preface, this paper establishes the historical origins of the affirmative action myth as well as introduces research that shows how negative portrayals of affirmative action are misleading. After discussing the current consequences of repealing affirmative action in college admissions, the second part of this paper investigates contemporary views of affirmative action from both students and parents who identify as Asian American. Lastly, this paper discusses applications of the research findings to modern Asian American movements towards self-determination.

Trumpocalypse and the Historical Limits of Higher Education Policy: Making the Case for Study/Struggle

This essay highlights the limits of liberal reform policies designed to increase access to higher education for minoritized and marginalized groups. First, we discuss Trump’s higher education agenda, focusing on his antipathy toward these populations and his commitment to White supremacy. We then focus on affirmative action in college admissions as an exemplar of a liberal racial equity policy, sketching its history, which illustrates its anemic effect, and White countermobilization against change that existed long before Trump. Next, we detail Trump’s efforts to eliminate this policy, which is part of the same populist, ethno-nationalist, anti-immigrant, anti-Black ideological campaign that has galvanized White voters across time. Ultimately, we argue that unbridled power won’t yield to liberal reforms. As such, we shift our focus to how higher education might be reimagined as a site of transformation, offering a series of provocations for a new horizon of racial equity in universities and society.