August 14, 2023
Remember how the Supreme Court gutted affirmative action a few months ago saying colleges and universities can no longer explicitly consider race when deciding whether a student should be admitted.
Well.
Today the Education Department put out new guidance for how those very same colleges and universities can do two things at once. Comply with the supreme court ruling and also continue to “pursue campuses that are racially diverse and that includes students with a range of viewpoints, talents, backgrounds and experiences.”
Before I tell you about how the department of justice and education department say they can do that, it’s important to say this is guidance. It is not mandatory it’s not the law. But if colleges and universities want to continue to have diverse campuses — this would be how the justice and education departments say they legally can.
Now – if you are a high school senior thinking about applying to college or if you’re a parent with a kid thinking about applying to college this is important information to have and I will email it out to you tonight in my news girl news roundup email. So make sure you sign yourself up.
As I reported when the supreme court released this affirmative action ruling in June, it was nuanced. It wasn’t black and white. The justices did not say colleges and universities can never consider race in the application process. In fact — the Chief Justice wrote in the majority opinion – “nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.” “the student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race.”
So what the guidance says is – colleges and universities must create a more “holistic application-review process” by providing more opportunities on the actual application for students to talk about how their “individual backgrounds and attributes including those related to their race, experiences of racial discrimination or the racial composition of their neighborhoods and schools—position them to contribute to campus in unique ways.“ For example a university could consider an applicant’s explanation about what it means to him to be the first Black violinist in his city’s youth orchestra or an applicant’s account of overcoming prejudice when she transferred to a rural high school where she was the only student of South Asian descent. Colleges and universities can also consider the words of a guidance counselor of how an applicant has overcome other racial adversities in high school.
But that’s not where it stops. According to this new guidance – there is nothing in this Supreme Court ruling that prevents colleges and universities from continuing their outreach, recruitment or pathway programs meant to get prospective students excited and aware about the opportunities of that college or university. That means they can consider race and other factors like geography, financial resources and parent’s education level to identify prospective students to increase the pool of college-ready applicants in high school and career and technical education programs. What they can’t do is provide these targeted groups of potential students with preference in the admission process itself.
The guidance says the supreme court decision does not prevent colleges and universities from collecting demographic data on student applicants including race. Again, it cannot be used as the determining factor for admission but they can collect it along with age, sex, citizenship, etc.
Now the guidance also suggests, in light of the supreme court ruling, colleges could also review their legacy admissions policies – meaning maybe it’s time to rethink giving special preference to children of alumni or donors. It may also be time for colleges and universities to rethink other barriers for some diverse applicants like fees, standardized testing requirements or the use of binding early decision deadlines.
Read the Department of Education letter here
Read the FAQ here
