A federal judge has ruled that 23 prestigious colleges and universities in the Overlap Group violated federal antitrust laws for over 20 years when they met to compare financial-aid packages to be awarded to prospective students, rejecting arguments of social and educational need and nonapplicability of antitrust law. Massachusetts Institute of…

Colleges must make radical changes in their structure, values, hiring practices, and the way they treat students if they want to attract more minority students and professors. Faculty members are given little incentive to work with minority students. (MLW)

Critics say the University of Maryland's race-specific scholarship program aids mostly well-off blacks and is biased against whites. The scholarships were established in 1979 to help make amends for the state's history of excluding blacks from the university. (MSE)

The Pennsylvania debate between higher education officials and civil rights activists over how aggressively states should order public colleges to recruit minority students may be a preview of controversy in other states where court-ordered desegregation plans have expired or been removed. (MSE)

In briefs filed with the Supreme Court, the Clinton administration, higher-education and civil-rights groups, colleges, and law schools are urging the court to uphold the legality of race-exclusive scholarships in a University of Maryland case. The briefs emphasize the scholarships' value in promoting diverse student bodies. (MSE)

Justice Department documents prepared for an antitrust lawsuit suggest that the way the eight Ivy League colleges and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have recruited students and awarded financial aid amounts to price fixing. The Overlap Group, 23 elite private colleges, met regularly to compare financial aid packages offered to common…

Reports issued by the State Higher Education Executive Officers and the Education Commission of the States say that progress toward full participation of minorities in higher education has become stalled and must improve, both to benefit minorities and because that group is an increasing proportion of the college-age population. (MSE)

The Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools' policy allowing reviewers to consider a college's efforts to recruit and retain minority students and faculty members is being studied, with the controversial recommendation made that the Education Department delay recognition of the accrediting agency. (MSE)

The college outlook is grim for blacks 25 years after James Meredith became the first black to enroll at the University of Mississippi. Both Hispanics and Asian-Americans are misunderstood by college officials, and too little attention has been focused on community colleges, the institutions that serve the most minority students. (MLW)

Georgia has met few of the numerical goals in the desegregation plan approved by the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights. The goals are seen as unrealistic and some of the plans to attract White students to the state's historically Black colleges have been faulty. (MLW)

Department of Education issuance of reports on the status of 10 states' court-ordered college desegregation without any evaluation of the states' efforts has disappointed civil-rights activists. The unexpected release of the reports was due in part to the threat of Congressional subpoena of the information. (MSE)

Although efforts to keep talented students within the state, primarily by offering merit scholarships, are politically popular, state officials are not sure they will be effective. (MSE)

Black land-grant institutions have undergone dramatic changes in the last two decades, being forced to reevaluate their missions, develop new student recruitment strategies, and forge new relationships with predominantly White colleges and state legislatures in an effort to survive and to serve their clientele. (MSE)

Problems and controversies involving public black colleges are reported in the context of the recent Supreme Court decision suggesting states should merge historically black colleges with geographically close, predominantly white institutions. In some cases white political leaders are blamed for potential closures of vulnerable institutions.…

Federal investigators have found that many colleges and universities lack satisfactory systems for recruiting black faculty members, even after years of operating under court-ordered desegregation plans. There was also widespread dissatisfaction among black students at many colleges. The Education Department's Office for Civil Rights' report is…