affirmative action

• 
• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  3/23/2023
  

  A Secret Joke Clouds Harvard's Affirmative Action Case

  Years ago, a Department of Education official sent a joke in the form of a mock memo from Harvard's admissions office to the school's dean of admissions. The joke referenced Asian stereotypes. Its exact content, as referenced in a sidebar in a federal court trial, had been sealed, and then protected by mutual agreement between the trial judge and the parties. Why?

• 
• SOURCE: Substack
  3/19/2023
  

  A Prominent Story about How "Diversity" Entered College Admissions is Wrong

  by Charles Petersen

  The plaintiffs in a case seeking to outlaw affirmative action in admission policies are relying on a false narrative that "diversity" entered Harvard's admissions criteria as a way to limit the number of Jews admitted. While the existence of Jewish quotas is documented, the two aren't connected. 

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• SOURCE: Fox 32
  3/17/2023
  

  Anthony Chen on the History of Affirmative Action in Higher Ed

  The Northwestern historian's new book will arrive as the Supreme Court potentially decides the fate of affirmative action in college admissions. 

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• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  3/7/2023
  

  Is Harvard Actually Discriminating Against Asian Applicants?

  by Julie J. Park

  The data supporting the charge that Harvard's affirmative action policies amount to discrimination against Asian American students isn't as clear-cut as has been reported, says an education researcher who's investigated the policies. Blaming race-based affirmative action conceals the preferences given to legacies, athletes, and donors' children. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  2/15/2023
  

  Did Lewis Powell Sign a Slow Death Warrant for Affirmative Action?

  The Times court reporter Emily Bazelon dives into the decision by Justice Powell to decide the 1978 Bakke case through reference to "diversity" instead of racial justice, a rationale that stripped away much of the unjust history of higher education. 

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• SOURCE: Boston Review
  2/6/2023
  

  The Blindness of Colorblindness: Revisiting "When Affirmative Action was White"

  by Ira Katznelson

  The author of a key work on the way racial discrimination was built into the New Deal and postwar American social policy addresses objections to his book two decades later, and concludes that white supremacy and the influence of southern conservatives over legislation are still powerful explanations. 

• 
• SOURCE: Slate
  2/8/2023
  

  If Affirmative Action is Banned, Colleges Need to Do Wealth-Based Admissions Right

  by Peter Dreier, Richard D. Kahlenberg and Melvin L. Oliver

  Omitting family wealth from admissions decisions harms educational equity twice over, because wealth is so influential over opportunity and because it correlates so strongly with race. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  1/15/2023
  

  Affirmative Action Cases May Force Colleges to Rethink Everything

  Some experts warn of a possible lost generation of college students from underrepresented backgrounds if race-conscious admissions are prohibited. 

• 
• SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
  12/12/2022
  

  Defenders of Affirmative Action at Harvard Need to Confront Anti-Asian Biases

  by Jonathan Zimmerman

  It's clear that Harvard's criteria for rating prospective students connect with cultural traits and stereotypes in ways that disadvantage Asian American applicants. But keeping affirmative action and fixing these issues aren't mutually exclusive.

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  12/2/2022
  

  The Blindness of the Supreme Court's "Colorblindness"

  by Drew Gilpin Faust

  "Affirmative action opened a door I would walk through.... My professors, soon to be my colleagues, could imagine me among them because the very notion of women faculty had been given a legitimacy and a thinkability."

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  11/29/2022
  

  Can Universities Protect Diverse Admissions and Excellence?

  by John Thelin

  The vastly improved technology available to college admissions officers means that a handful of selective institutions can serve the interest of both nominal diversity and elite reproduction, while exacerbating the divide in elementary and secondary educational quality in the nation. 

• 
• SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
  11/21/2022
  

  Ties Documented Between Legal Activist Challenging Affirmative Action and White Nationalists

  by Jean Guerrero

  Both the activists behind two Supreme Court cases challenging affirmative action and the funding network that supports them have close ties to overt white nationalists and anti-immigration leaders, suggesting that the lawsuits are less about fairness for all than about advantage for whites. 

• 
• SOURCE: Slate
  11/3/2022
  

  Some Asian American Activists Helped Build Affirmative Action; Today Some are Working to Dismantle It

  by Ellen Wu

  The midcentury rise of fascism and struggles for Black civil rights gave some Japanese American activists an opening to argue for principles of proportionality in ethnic representation in politics, education, employment, and other areas, key support for the group of policies that became affirmative action. 

• 
• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  11/4/2022
  

  The Sad Death of Affirmative Action

  by Jay Caspian Kang

  New Yorker writer Jay Caspian Kang argues that while the benefit of "diversity" is largely uncontested, the brand of diversity that Harvard and other elite institutions want to ensure is circumscribed by the bounds of economic elitism, a far cry from the high moral purposes originally claimed for affirmative action. 

• 
• SOURCE: Slate
  11/1/2022
  

  Sociologist: Yes, Harvard Discriminated Against Jews. No, It's Not an Apt Metaphor for Affirmative Action

  by Jerome Karabel

  Despite the enthusiasm of the plaintiffs and the conservative justices for the comparison, Harvard's treatment of Asian American applicants today doesn't match its treatment of Jewish students in the 1920s. 

• 
• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  10/31/2022
  

  History Makes the Best Argument to Keep Affirmative Action

  by Glenn C. Altschuler and David Wippman

  "The Supreme Court’s continued focus on educational benefits as the legal justification for affirmative action has led the policy’s supporters to play down what may well be a more compelling argument: the need to overcome past and continuing discrimination."

• 
• SOURCE: Vox
  10/30/2022
  

  Inside the Affirmative Action Cases Before SCOTUS

  Edward Blum is a longtime conservative legal activist who is leading lawsuits claiming that affirmative action in admissions violates the requirement that the constituiton be color-blind; whether there is any such principle is debatable. Includes insights from historians Hugh Davis Graham and Eddie R. Cole. 

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• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  10/31/2022
  

  A Roundup of Affirmative Action Takes as SCOTUS Hears Arguments in Harvard, UNC Cases

  From left, right and center, and from pundits and legal scholars, a roundup of analysis on the oral arguments in Supreme Court cases that could eliminate race-conscious admissions policies. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  10/31/2022
  

  Defendant in Michigan Admissions Case: Ending Affirmative Action Would be Disastrous

  by Lee C. Bollinger and Geoffrey R. Stone

  The former President of the University of Michigan says that diversity in higher education remains a compelling reason to allow race as one factor in college admissions. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  10/28/2022
  

  SCOTUS Affirmative Action Cases Hinge on History of Brown and the 14th Amendment

  by Linda Greenhouse

  Neither Brown nor the 14th Amendment were driven by a belief in a "colorblind" Constitution; instead, they were rooted in the historically specific context of racial oppression. The plaintiffs in two cases before the court want to obscure that history, says veteran court reporter Linda Greenhouse.