It has been a long, litigious road from Heman Sweatt, an African-American mail carrier who wanted to attend the prestigious, all-White law school at the University of Texas at Austin in 1946, to Abigail Fisher, a White high school student who failed to win undergraduate admission to the same university a half-century later. Depending on what the…

Before Heman Sweatt, an African-American from Houston, won his lawsuit to attend the University of Texas (UT) School of Law, Carlos Cadena, a Mexican-American from San Antonio, was among its brightest students. Cadena graduated summa cum laude from the law school in 1940, a decade before Sweatt's lawsuit forced UT to open its graduate and…

When the U.S. Supreme Court takes up "Fisher v. Texas" in the fall--its first major consideration of affirmative action policies in higher education since 2003--scholars, legal experts and university administrators say the policies that are the basis of affirmative action in the nation's colleges and universities may be coming to an end. While…

In 2003, two cases came before the Supreme Court that presented the stiffest challenge to affirmative action in decades. A White applicant to the University of Michigan's law school sued the school, claiming that she had been rejected on the basis of her race. Similarly, two White applicants to the University of Michigan's undergraduate school…

For Dr. Freeman Hrabowski III, nothing beats the view from the top of the world that he helped shape during the past 20 years. Even on a day when storm clouds hover, the president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, or UMBC, humbly acknowledges that his academic kingdom looks mighty good. He has been key in shaping the university into…

During the past 10 years, Cornell University has made significant strides in recruiting underrepresented minorities and women in its faculty ranks, but a new internal study at the university is revealing that its success is a mixed bag. The number of minority faculty has grown about 52 percent, and the number of female faculty members has…

When Colgate University decided a few years ago to recast its diversity efforts, it joined a small, but growing, number of schools across the U.S. in taking a new approach to a decades-old challenge of how best to make their school more appealing to people from all walks of life and more compelling to employers as a good place to recruit. Colgate,…

When it comes to dealing with his fellow students at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Warner, a 21-year-old aerospace engineering major, says the fact that he comes from a group of farmers known as the Pallar community means nothing. But when it comes to his enrollment status as a student at IIT, it makes all the difference in the world.…

Some affirmative action and diversity program critics are cheering President Barack Obama's election because they believe his success dramatically undermines the argument that discrimination remains a significant barrier for minorities in American life. Ward Connerly Jr., arguably the most visible anti-affirmative action activist in the United…

The homepage of the Project on Fair Representation (POFR) features a smiling photo of Abigail Fisher, the young White woman at the center of "Fisher v. the University of Texas," which could end race as a criterion in university admissions. Edward Blum, founder of POFR, a conservative advocacy group, connected Fisher with Wiley Rein LLP,…

Today, a national economy gone bust has derailed Black Americans' plans across the country. Gone are many of the economic gains, small as they were, achieved in the post-segregation era by millions of 1960s generation children and their children. Black America today is beset by job losses, business closures, pay cuts, furloughs, investment and…

In education, reform tends to follow cycles, often bouncing from one extreme to another without considering the possibility of incorporating multiple perspectives simultaneously. Policies aimed at helping more underrepresented students enter college and complete degrees have bounced from one pole to another, embracing access as the primary goal…

This timeline reflects some of the most significant legal and legislative milestones that have influenced higher education over the 25 years that "Diverse: Issues in Higher Education," formerly "Black Issues in Higher Education," has been in print. The legal battles have primarily involved the settlement of desegregation cases and the use of race…

This article discusses why rising fees for graduate programs at University of California campuses threaten to undermine growth of underrepresented minorities (URMs) in health-science and other professions. Dental student Hector Godoy easily relates to his patients at a University of California, Los Angeles clinic. Like many of them, Godoy never…

In President Barack Obama's most recent State of the Union address, technology figured significantly as part of his plan to increase the number of college graduates and reduce the cost of education. With concern that the United States is losing its competitive edge because it is not producing enough graduates and minority students are reportedly…