Updates research from the 1970s and 1980s regarding the achievement of a fully representative federal bureaucracy. Suggests that there is not widespread support among supervisors for the notion of a representative bureaucracy and that such attitudes may have an impact on recruitment efforts. (JOW)

"America in Black and White: One Nation Indivisible: Race in Modern America," by Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom, has become important in the movement to abolish affirmative action in higher education. Suggests the book seriously misinterprets and misuses evidence to make its case, refuting specific results the book cites related to…

Following the U.S. Supreme Court's "Grutter" decision, universities must now make the judgment that student diversity is essential to their educational mission. This article examines the prospects for increasing Latino representation in higher education in this post- "Grutter" era. The article further explores the effect of affirmative action…

Affirmative action is a necessary but not sufficient condition for diversifying graduate school. Increasing diversity requires us to capitalize on unintended consequences. Adopting the philosophy of intellectual entrepreneurship, although valuable to all students and disciplines, may have a special and perhaps more substantial impact on…

On 23 June 2003, the Supreme Court of the United States issued two rulings on the constitutionality of race preferences in university admissions. The cases in question both involved the University of Michigan and were designated Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger. The Michigan rulings were a stunning triumph for race preferences, from…

Many countries mandate affirmative action in university admissions for traditionally disadvantaged groups. Little is known about either the efficacy or costs of these programs. This paper examines affirmative action in engineering colleges in India for "lower-caste" groups. We find that it successfully targets the financially…

Using policy discourse analysis, the author analyzed 21 diversity action plans issued at 20 U.S. land-grant universities over a five-year period to identify images of diversity and the problems and solutions represented in diversity action plans. Discourses of marketplace, excellence, managerialism, and democracy emerged and served to construct…

Public higher education has undergone a process similar to that in the national polity: a one-sided struggle by those with power to shape the institution to be more market driven, more focused on what will generate (non-state) revenues, more dominated by top administrators, and less concerned about the working class and people of color. This…

While colleges and legal analysts are focusing on what to do in the post-Hopwood world, some of us are still asking whether a move away from affirmative action was a prudent move from the beginning. Is it fair for society to move away from supporting students who have not had an equitable chance at the educational brass ring just because, in most…

Stigma is a major barrier to the life opportunities of people with disabilities, including those with psychiatric disabilities. Structural discrimination is stigma that results from social forces that develop over many years to diminish a group's resources and support needed to be successful. Affirmative action is a legal and political remedy to…

This article reports the findings of a new study conducted by the two researchers at Princeton University, Douglas S. Massey and Margarita Mooney. The study was based on data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen, which covers about 3,900 students who entered 28 public and private selective colleges in the fall of 1999. The study found…

This work reviews race-based admission and its alternatives, as well as the benefits of diversity on college campuses. This entails an overview of the research regarding the effectiveness of class-based approaches to achieving diversity and evidence of the importance of establishing a critical mass of persons of color at predominately white…

Understandably, current discussions about access that take place in higher education circles often focus on the underrepresentation of students from low-income families. At the same time, recent events in Michigan have refocused attention on questions of race- and gender-based affirmative action. Thus, how can higher education ensure that students…

Building on their important findings in "The Source of the River," the authors now probe even more deeply into minority underachievement at the college level. "Taming the River" examines the academic and social dynamics of different ethnic groups during the first two years of college. Focusing on racial differences in academic performance, the…

This volume is the first to comprehensively examine Chinese's affirmative action policies in the critical area of minority education, the most important conduit to employment and economic success in the People's Republic of China after the economic reforms begun in the late 1970s. This book contains four parts. Part I, "Debating China's…