In the shadow of the Supreme Court's decision to uphold raceconscious policies in "Fisher v. University of Texas" (2016), and midway to Justice O'Connor's 25-year sunset clause in "Grutter v. Bollinger" (2003), affirmative action remains contentious. This qualitative theoretical study posits that we need not speculate about…

In November of 1996, California voted and approved Proposition 209 (also known as the California Civil Rights Initiative) by a tally of 54.55% to 45.45%. It is unknown how many of those voters voted for the initiative because the name implied that it was pro-civil rights. Nonetheless, California became the first state to ban the practice of…

Education is the value proposition that provides individuals the opportunity to become meaningful contributors to society, their community, and their immediate families. It is the calling card of personal achievement and individual intrinsic benefits. Education is about access and opportunity. Institutions continue to navigate strategies of access…

The following essay details a debate between UC Berkeley and a Regent who made charges of discrimination against Asian American students that are similar to the current legal challenges facing Harvard University. The crux of such charges: on average, that one racial or ethnic group is more "qualified" than other groups, often…

Opponents of affirmative action in the Fisher Supreme Court case claim that race-conscious admissions policies discriminate against Asian American applicants and impose a "higher bar" in college admissions than for other students. In their amicus brief supporting the plaintiff in the Fisher case, 80-20 states that, "Asian American…

This essay discusses the contentious events leading to the decision by the University of California's Board of Regents to end affirmative action in admissions, hiring and contracting at the university in July 1995. This controversial decision provided momentum for California's passage of Proposition 209 the following year ending "racial…

The racial diversification of America's higher education system has been at the forefront of legal argument for the last seventy-five years. Ground-breaking decisions birthed the inclusion of affirmative action policies in higher education after the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In recent years, both the utility and constitutionality…

In 1996, California voters approved Proposition 209--a ban on the consideration of race in the college admissions process at public universities. This policy brief examines the effects of Proposition 209 at the University of California system by analyzing twenty years' of application, admission, and enrollment data. The brief concludes that in…

Authors examine the proportion of undergraduate applications, admissions, and enrollments preceding, during, and after Proposition 209 while accounting for the relative growth in University of California eligibility for underrepresented minorities (URMs). They employed standard deviation analyses to measure dispersion of the URMs to non-URMs.…

The instability of the U.S. economy and its competitiveness in the global market has lead to increase request for investment in Higher Education programs. There exists a rising awareness among scholars of how inextricably education is tied to the strength of the economy, the well being of its populace, as well as the importance of a diversified…

One of the important arguments by critics of affirmative action is that it actually hurts the students it is supposed to help by subjecting them to the "stigma" of being admitted under policies explicitly seeking campus diversity. Such students, this theory argues, must feel embarrassed and uncomfortable as a result and would prefer to…

This timely book examines issues pertaining to equal opportunity--affirmative action, challenges to it, and alternatives for improving opportunities for underrepresented groups--in higher education today. Its starting point is California's Proposition 209, which ended race-based affirmative action in public education and the workplace in 1996. The…

After the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decisions on the University of Michigan admission cases, which struck down racial preferences and quotas in Michigan's undergraduate and law school admission, several groups have challenged race-conscious admission, school placement policies and academic support programs. Even the federal government has challenged…

Using a critical race theory framework, this study examines the ways in which race and racialized ideologies are manifested in high-stakes college admissions, the debate over affirmative action, and the college choice behavior of Black high school students. This study allows for the voices of Black high school students in California to describe…

After passage of Proposition 209, the University of California began searching for race-neutral admissions criteria that would allow it to minimize drops in enrollment of under represented minorities. Concern for under represented minorities led to several changes in admissions policies, most notably the introduction of comprehensive or holistic…