On Monday, October 31, 2022, the Supreme Court heard five hours of oral arguments on two important cases that could decide the future of affirmative action in college admissions and whether an applicant’s race can be considered in a holistic review process. The two cases, brought by Students for Fair Admissions, approach the question of the use of race in admissions from different angles. The University of North Carolina is charged with discriminating against white and Asian applicants in favor of Black, Hispanic, and Native American students. Harvard is once again charged with systematically discriminating against Asian American applicants. The plaintiffs have asked the Supreme Court to overturn more than 40 years of case law that has consistently confirmed the legality of race-conscious admissions.
As recently as 2016, the Supreme Court upheld that taking account of race as “one factor among many” to achieve educational diversity was permissible. The composition of the court has changed in the last six years, and today, many expect a conservative super-majority of justices on the Supreme Court will reverse decades of precedent that allowed the consideration of race in admissions.
RACE-CONSCIOUS ADMISSIONS: HOW DID WE GET HERE?
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978) was a case brought to the Supreme Court over the use of affirmative action in the college admissions process. As part of its affirmative action program, the University of California at Davis Medical School reserved 16 of the 100 places in each entering class for “qualified” minorities. Allan Bakke, a white man, was twice rejected by the school, though his GPA and test scores exceeded those of the minority students who were admitted each year he was not. Bakke sued for violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Ultimately, the Supreme Court justices ruled that the school could use race as a factor in admissions for affirmative action but could not have a quota system because that violated the Equal Protection Clause.
Justice Powell, in his plurality opinion on the case, affirmed that diversity is a constitutionally permissible goal for higher education and further, that the nation’s future depends upon “leaders trained through wide exposure to the ideas and mores of students as diverse as this nation of many peoples.”
The Bakke decisions laid out parameters of constitutionally permissible admissions processes, one that allows colleges to engage in an individualized race-conscious program within the broader context of a holistic admissions process. The Supreme Court went on to reaffirm this use of race as “one of many factors” in a holistic admissions process in subsequent cases including in 2003 in decisions in Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger (University of Michigan Law School Admissions and Undergraduate Admissions, respectively), and the more recent decision (2016) in Fisher v. University of Texas.
The current law does not allow – or has ever allowed – the use of racial quotas in admissions. In all these cases, the Supreme Court has continued to affirm that universities have a compelling educational interest in diverse student bodies and that student diversity can be achieved when race is considered as one of many factors in admissions, alongside everything else that is known about an applicant.
HOLISTIC REVIEW PROCESS
Checking the box or thoughtful consideration?
Listen to any admissions presentation at top colleges and universities and you’ll hear the phrase “holistic admissions review process” repeatedly. As Stanford succinctly notes on its website:
At Stanford, we practice holistic admission. Each piece in your application is part of an integrated and comprehensive whole.
One piece tells us about your background and life experiences, another about your school and your academic achievement. We learn from others about your character and intellectual contributions. In your essays, we learn about your ideas and interests, and what is meaningful to you.
Each year we aim to enroll a class of diverse backgrounds and experiences, talents, academic interests, and ways of viewing the world.
In a holistic review, we seek to understand how you, as a whole person, would grow, contribute and thrive at Stanford, and how Stanford would, in turn, be changed by you.
A holistic review process seeks to understand students’ unique circumstances and backgrounds, along with academic preparation, intellectual curiosity, and extracurricular engagement. Race, ethnicity, economic and educational opportunity (or lack thereof), geography, citizenship, hardship, talents, interests, and unique experiences are all part of each student’s lived experience and are inextricably linked to who they are and what they have been able to achieve.
Reviewing the supplemental questions and essays that colleges and universities require, you see examples of the very context that these schools hope to include in their review process:
- USC asks students to detail significant family responsibilities that may impact their academic record and time for extracurricular activities – from caring for sick or elderly family members to translating or interpreting for the household and from working a job to contribute to household income to caring for siblings.
- One of Duke’s four optional supplements asks students to write about their lived experiences and how these circumstances have influenced how they think of themselves. Another invites students who wish to share more about their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression to do so.
- UNC invites applicants to describe an aspect of their identity and how this has impacted their life experiences or daily interaction with others.
- MIT offers these optional prompts to applicants: 1) Please tell us more about your cultural background and identity; 2) Describe the world you come from, for example, your family, clubs, school, community, city, or town. How has that world shaped your dreams and aspirations?
RACE-CONSCIOUS ADMISSIONS: THE IMPACT
Which colleges and universities will be impacted should the Supreme Court limit or disallow the use of race in the admissions process?
Nine states, including California, Florida and Michigan, already prohibit consideration of race in public university admissions. A Supreme Court ruling in favor of the plaintiffs in the two current cases brought by Students for Fair Admissions that significantly limits the use of race-conscious admissions would impact a small sector of US higher education – specifically those hyper-selective private colleges and universities who admit fewer than 20-25% of their applicants.
How will colleges achieve broader diversity goals without affirmative action?
The jury is still out on how successful race-neutral approaches to admissions might be, but already a host of initiatives are in place to augment colleges’ ability to enroll diverse student bodies. Should the Supreme Court rule in favor of the plaintiffs in the two cases currently before the court, we expect to see some changes to admissions and recruitment.
Colleges and universities already have expanded intentional outreach to low-income and minority students to build more diverse applicant pools. Strong partnerships with community-based organizations like Questbridge that seek to expand access for historically underrepresented students to the nation’s elite colleges and universities are important and growing applicant pipelines. Texas, California, and Florida offer eligible in-state applicants’ automatic admission to public colleges and universities.
Admissions offices are more sophisticated in their use of data to recruit students from low-income schools and communities or who are first in their families to go to college. The College Board’s Landscape feature uses census tract data to provide admissions offices with six key indicators related to students’ educational opportunities and outcomes: college attendance, household structure, median income, housing stability, education level, and crime.
The pandemic-era changes to admissions testing have already led many (but not all) colleges and universities to de-emphasize or eliminate standardized-test scores in their deliberations and instead emphasize personal attributes and experiences.
What about legacy preferences?
You can be certain that if the Supreme Court disallows the consideration of race in admissions, then there will be tremendous public pressure on top institutions to also discontinue preferences for legacy applicants.
WHAT’S NEXT?
With decisions in blockbuster cases like these two now before the Supreme Court, top colleges and universities are likely working to prepare for potential significant changes in how students are recruited and selected.
As we learn more, we’ll continue to offer our expert analysis and guidance.
In addition, Maria is proud of her long-term volunteer work with Opera North (Lebanon, NH) in fundraising, marketing and audience engagement. She is an avid masters rower with the Upper Valley Rowing Foundation (Hanover, NH) and also serves as a member of its board of directors.
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