In this article I draw on the Sarte's notion of "seriality" as theorized in his book "Dialectic of Reason" and as interpreted by Iris Marion Young. I argue that seriality can be used to escape the false essentialism and identity politics of race as a category for admissions to universities. A series is a social collective whose members are unified…

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.…

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.…

Are direct democratic ballot initiatives a just way to make education policy, especially when the policy disproportionately affects members of underrepresented groups? This is the broad question taken up in this article, related in particular to how education policy decided through the ballot initiative process affects minorities. The authors use…

In this article, Amy N. Farley, Matthew N. Gaertner, and Michele S. Moses examine the use of ballot initiatives as a particularly attractive form of direct democracy for opponents of affirmative action in higher education. Building on previous scholarship, the authors question whether anti-affirmative ballot initiatives validly reflect voters'…

In this paper I suggest a technique which uses the familiar Parker Brother's game "Monopoly" to introduce core concepts of race and ethnic relations. I offer anecdotes from my classes where an abbreviated version of the game is used as an analog to highlight the sociological concepts of direct institutional discrimination, the legacy of…

This comprehensive, encyclopedic review explores gender and its impact on American higher education across historical and cultural contexts. Challenging recent claims that gender inequities in U.S. higher education no longer exist, the contributors--leading experts in the field--reveal the many ways in which gender is embedded in the educational…

This article explores how race-conscious education policy is interpreted in the political landscape of a "postracial" America. Based on a qualitative media analysis of the press coverage surrounding Amendment 46, an antiaffirmative action initiative, we examine language, statistics, and messages leveraged by advocates and critics of the…

This paper examined the gender imbalance among students in Nigeria's higher education and the possible ways to addressing them. The poor access of female gender to higher education in Nigeria has become a thing of great concern to all stakeholders such as School authorities, Government, International agencies and employers of labor. The paper…

Affirmative action (AA) is one of the most suitable mechanisms to promote equity and social justice in education in India. This essay deals with the impact of the different conceptualizations of AA in terms of its vision and the historic approaches to social inequalities in India. Primarily focusing on the various perspectives of affirmative…

At the heart of the discussion in this special issue on race and affirmative action is the issue of whether race should be used as a category in admissions policies of South African universities. In my contribution I shall argue that there are no races. By race I mean the idea that skin colour (or other phenotypical features) associated with…

The wording of university academic job advertisements can reflect a commitment to equity (affirmative action) as opposed to academic merit in hiring decisions. The method of judgemental content analysis was applied by having three judges rate 810 Australian tenure-stream advertisements on seven-point magnitude scales of equity and merit. The…

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,…

This article explores concerns about gender inequality in Zimbabwean state universities. The researcher's interest arose from the realisation of persistent gender inequalities despite initiatives to close gender gaps. Of particular concern is the conceptualization and operationalisation of gender equality in institutions. Focusing only on the…