What Will Universities Do Once Bakke Goes Belly Up?

// So what now? As the Robed Ones prepare to make Bakke go the way of the dodo, schools are preemptively scrambling to determine how to reap the benefits of a diverse student body without running afoul of what the Thomas C… I mean, the Roberts Court deems constitutional.

In 1998, the year a voter-approved measure barring the use of race-conscious admissions policies for public colleges and universities in California took effect, the percentage of Black, Hispanic and Native American students admitted at two of the state’s elite public schools plummeted by more than 50%.

googletag.cmd.push( function() { // Display ad. googletag.display( "div-id-for-top-300x250" ); });

Will California’s past be the rest of the nation’s academic future? One head of admissions thinks we have an obligation to make sure that’s not the case:

Sponsored LawVu Enhances Contract & Matter Functionality With AI LawVu, the category-defining legal workspace for in-house legal teams, today announced the addition of several new AI enhancements to their legal workspace. From LawVu  

“We cannot afford as a nation to regress on our goals to create an educated and equitable society,” said Seth Allen, head of admissions at Pomona College in California. “So it’s incumbent on higher education to figure out how to work collectively together to ensure that we’re not furthering the enrollment gap among different groups of students.”

The wild part is that several institutes have already attempted to get at the intended results by tweaking the formula. The experiments, especially those conducted by the schools subject to the ongoing trial, haven’t been cheap either:

googletag.cmd.push( function() { // Display ad. googletag.display( "div-id-for-middle-300x250" ); }); googletag.cmd.push( function() { // Display ad. googletag.display( "div-id-for-storycontent-440x100" ); }); googletag.cmd.push( function() { // Display ad. googletag.display( "div-id-for-in-story-youtube-1x1" ); });

In briefs filed with the Supreme Court, the University of California and the University of Michigan – top public school systems from states that have outlawed race-conscious admissions – said they have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on alternative programs intended to improve diversity, but that those efforts have fallen far short of goals.

That said, there are still options others are planning to pursue:

Sponsored Sponsored The Non-Event Industry Wrap-Up CRM, Virtual Receptionist, Chat and Text Messaging for Law Firms. News from the world of legal tech, featuring Lawmatics and MyCase. From Above the Law   Sponsored ChatGPT Draws State Lawmakers’ Attention To AI ChatGPT and other AI models have drawn a great deal of public attention since being introduced last year—state lawmakers are taking notice too. From Korey Clark, Editor, State Net Capitol Journal™   Sponsored LawVu Enhances Contract & Matter Functionality With AI LawVu, the category-defining legal workspace for in-house legal teams, today announced the addition of several new AI enhancements to their legal workspace. From LawVu   Sponsored Artificial Intelligence Saves Lawyers Time And Money While Improving Accessibility Of Data From Michael Owsley - VIQ Solutions  

Colonel Arthur Primas Jr., the U.S. Air Force Academy’s admissions director, said his racially diverse recruiting team will continue to visit schools in U.S. congressional districts with heavy concentrations of minorities and will try to encourage more students to seek nominations to the academy from their local members of Congress.

Administrators at schools located in or near major cities, including Pomona College near Los Angeles and Sarah Lawrence College in New York, said they would hope to draw more students from racially diverse local high schools and take more transfer students from local community colleges.

Yvonne Berumen, vice president of admissions at Pitzer College in California, said her team might run essay workshops at high schools in those targeted zip codes – postal regions – in hopes of generating applications.

It remains unclear how effective these strategies will be at addressing the enrollment gap. Maybe all of this worry is for naught — perhaps the Court will decide to leave affirmative action as it is and reaffirm Bakke?

Just kidding. That’s not the way things seem to be trending for our country.

googletag.cmd.push( function() { // Display ad. googletag.display( "div-id-for-bottom-300x250" ); });

After a long, hard-fought battle, & our numerous attempts to kill it, Republicans passed SB17 to eliminate diversity, equity, & inclusion at all public TX colleges and universities. This is rolling us back to a time when not even water fountains were equally accessible. #txlege pic.twitter.com/9NdbrZakLB

— Victoria Neave Criado (@Victoria4Texas) May 20, 2023

US Colleges Game Out A Possible End To Race-Conscious Student Admissions [Reuters]

Sponsored Sponsored Artificial Intelligence Saves Lawyers Time And Money While Improving Accessibility Of Data From Michael Owsley - VIQ Solutions   Sponsored The Essential Guide to Slack eDiscovery Someday, you will likely need to extract data from Slack for eDiscovery, compliance, or other purposes. Here's how you can navigate its unique complexities. From Onna and Above The Law  

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

Topics

Affirmative Action, Bakke, Courts, Diversity, Education / Schools, Supreme Court