Less than a month after the Supreme Court banned the use of affirmative action in college admissions, Biden administration officials and college leaders gathered about a mile away from the court\u2019s steps to find ways to get around the court\u2019s decisions and maintain diverse classes.<\/p>\n
In the weeks leading up to and following the decision, college and government officials have been searching for ways to maintain their diversity goals without race-conscious admissions policies. On Wednesday, as they gathered at the Department of Education\u2019s headquarters, the mood was convivial. Colleagues from around the country caught up amid coffee, pastries, colorful uplighting and upbeat music.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Once the program started, the message from Biden administration officials to colleges was clear: You can\u2019t ignore the justices, but the decision can\u2019t be an excuse for colleges to shy away from building diverse classes. That echoed President Joe Biden\u2019s sentiment in the hours following the court\u2019s decision last month.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBy limiting race in college admissions the Supreme Court has rolled back decades of social progress and totally missed the point that our country\u2019s greatest strength is the diversity of its people,\u201d said James Kvaal, the undersecretary of education. \u201cWe\u2019re here today because we\u2019re determined not to let this decision be the last word.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona used his school principal-style energy to extol the college leaders in the audience to take advantage of the moment, telling them \u201cevery generation is called upon to renew the promise of America.\u201d He compared this period to the beginning of the pandemic, when college leaders had to determine how to keep their institutions running with everyone stuck at home.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cFor many of us the Supreme Court\u2019s decision on affirmative action feels like a new low point,\u201d he said. \u201cOur colleges have lost the most effective tool they\u2019ve ever had for building diverse campus communities.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Referencing challenges public colleges in states that already banned affirmative action faced maintaining similar shares of underrepresented students, Cardona told the audience, \u201cwe can not allow that kind of backsliding to happen on a national scale \u2013 and we\u2019re not.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In addition to words of encouragement, the Biden administration has said it would provide colleges with legal guidance on how to maintain diversity without running afoul of the law. On Wednesday, Biden administration lawyers said that document would be available in August. In the meantime, Catherine Lhamon, the assistant secretary for the office of civil rights at the Department of Education, told the audience, \u201clawful avenues remain open to colleges and universities,\u201d to achieve that objective.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI have heard about groups who are not the Department of Education or the Department of Justice sending schools notifications about what they say the law is and what they want you to do,\u201d she said. \u201cI offer you this, you will know when you hear from us,\u201d she said, adding that Congress assigned her office and the Department of Justice with the responsibility to enforce the law surrounding discrimination in schools.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general for civil rights at the Department of Justice, offered an example from her personal experience to illustrate the ways in which colleges can legally consider how a student\u2019s race has impacted them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cFor instance, maybe that would be a university considering an essay from a Black student who discussed her interest in becoming a civil rights attorney after going on a field trip to a courthouse,\u201d to hear arguments in a landmark civil rights case, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bottom line is this: Institutions of higher education remain free to consider any characteristic of a student that bears on the institution\u2019s admissions decision, such as courage or determination,\u201d she added.\u00a0<\/p>\n
College leaders in the room seemed largely receptive to the pitch from the Biden administration \u2013 that maintaining diversity in higher education is not only possible, but imperative in the wake of the Supreme Court\u2019s decision. Indeed, that\u2019s why they were there. But they repeatedly discussed the challenges enrolling and graduating larger numbers of Black, Latino and low-income students, with frequent nods to the cost of diversity and the foundation leaders in the room.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One reality underpinning the event was that even before the Supreme Court banned the use of affirmative action in college admissions, the higher education system struggled to achieve equitable outcomes. Research released days before the summit found that students from the top 1% were twice as likely as middle-class students with similar standardized test scores to attend a handful of selective colleges that have an outsized influence on the nation\u2019s leadership.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Much of that difference had to do with advantages colleges gave them in admissions, including viewing the non-academic qualifications of students who attend private high schools more favorably, nudges for recruited athletes and legacy preferences for students whose parents attended a given school.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Throughout the day, higher education leaders and officials lamented that colleges with the largest resources to push students to and through school \u2013 like those that were the focus of the study \u2013 educate a small share of the nation\u2019s college students. At the same time, the community colleges and regional public schools doing the yeoman\u2019s work of educating the nation\u2019s low-income students and students of color often struggle to receive funding.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The future of longstanding admissions practices that can tip the scale in favor of wealthy students, like giving a preference to legacy applicants, also pervaded officials\u2019 and college leaders\u2019 remarks. Those policies have received increased scrutiny in the wake of the affirmative action decision, with some schools dropping them. The Department of Education is also investigating a complaint from a group of civil rights organizations about Harvard University\u2019s legacy policy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cardona urged \u201cmore of our elite institutions with incredibly high graduation rates step up their enrollment of Pell grant recipients, rankings be damned.\u201d As part of that process the schools could consider changing the weight they place on various elements of a student\u2019s application, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cardona said he didn\u2019t have anything against legacy students who were successful in high school, but he added, \u201cI am in awe of the straight A student,\u201d who attended a low-income high school and \u201cspent hours on the bus every week to take an AP class that wasn\u2019t offered at her school.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eloy Ortiz Oakley, who served as chancellor of California Community Colleges for six years, decried participants\u2019 use of the word elite throughout the day to refer to schools that accept a small share of students. Instead, he said, the word should be reserved for colleges that educate the bulk of students in their community.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is elite, the others are rejective,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The head of one of those selective schools, Christina Paxson, the president of Brown University, highlighted some of the steps her college has taken to increase the number of low-income students in its ranks. Those include meeting 100% of students\u2019 financial need and not including loans in financial-aid packages.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Still, she acknowledged Brown only serves a small slice of the college-going population, which means a small share of low-income students are getting access to this generous financial aid. \u201cWe\u2019re lucky we\u2019re doing things that a lot of public institutions and other institutions simply can\u2019t afford to do,\u201d Paxon said. \u201cI\u2019m a huge advocate of increasing support for public institutions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other college leaders acknowledged how funding challenges at institutions of all types can play a role in the students they admit.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we think about why do some schools give a leg up to legacies, why do the top 1% get admitted more often, more quickly \u2013 because of money,\u201d said L. Song Richardson, the president of Colorado College. \u201cFull pay students across the country are gold. Period.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Richardson described getting rid of legacy admissions as \u201ctinkering around the edges\u201d of fixing the higher education system. She urged the audience to go beyond axing legacy preferences and test-optional policies to \u201cfix the inequitable and broken\u201d education system.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI am a fan of affirmative action, I was a beneficiary of affirmative action and I will also say that I think affirmative action made us complacent,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
College and state leaders highlighted some of the tactics they\u2019ve used to successfully boost the share of underrepresented students in colleges and universities. None of the strategies are new, and there are reasons \u2013 including cost, bureaucracy and a lack of will \u2013 why they still haven\u2019t been more widely adopted.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Still, stakeholders emphasized their intention to \u201cdouble down\u201d on these tactics in the wake of the decision, including:\u00a0<\/p>\n
Increasing college affordability: <\/strong>Cardona encouraged college leaders to expand need-based financial aid to help remove the barrier of cost for students of earning their degree. Various state and public college leaders also touted programs that make their public colleges free or nearly free for a wide swath of residents.\u00a0<\/p>\n Boosting community college transfer: <\/strong>Though students are often encouraged to start the college education at a community college to get a sense of what they want to study and to save money, transferring from a two-year college to a four-year school and then graduating in a timely manner can be challenging.\u00a0<\/p>\n That\u2019s because four-year colleges may not take credits students earn at community colleges or they take them but don\u2019t apply them towards a student\u2019s degree, slowing down their progress. And that\u2019s even when four-year schools provide a path to admission.\u00a0<\/p>\n Since Black, Latino and low-income students are overrepresented in community colleges, making it easier for community college students to transfer to four-year schools could go a long way in diversifying those campuses.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cFor us transfer is of crucial importance,\u201d said Juan Salgado, the chancellor of City Colleges of Chicago. \u201cWe can\u2019t allow them to have to redo things they\u2019ve already done,\u201d he said of community college transfer students.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe have high quality education at our community colleges, accept our high quality students,\u201d he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n Direct admissions: <\/strong>Dennis Olson, the commissioner of the Minnesota Office of Higher Education, shared his state\u2019s experience with direct admissions, or letting students know they\u2019ve gotten into a college before they apply.\u00a0<\/p>\n Minnesota is expanding a pilot program the state launched a few years ago providing students on track to graduate high school with a list of colleges that they\u2019ve been admitted to, he said. All they have to do is fill out a free application to claim their spot.\u00a0<\/p>\n For some students, whose families may have little experience with college or who don\u2019t see themselves represented among the nation\u2019s college students, applying can be daunting.\u00a0<\/p>\n Merhawi Tesfai, a first year doctoral student at the University of California Los Angeles and a student representative on the UC system\u2019s board of regents, offered evidence of that dynamic first hand. Tesfai transferred to UCLA from a community college for his first degree, but he almost didn\u2019t have the opportunity.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I first was applying to UCLA I almost didn\u2019t do it because I knew how competitive it was,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m glad I took the chance.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Direct admissions helps to eliminate some of that angst, Olson said. It\u2019s \u201cthat dream school saying you\u2019re ready for us and we\u2019re ready for you, take the next step.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n