“Diversity” is the watchword of higher education these days.
Universities have often used race-based affirmative action policies to balance the representation of racial and ethnic minorities. The practice has been considered controversial ever since colleges first put them into place.
While precedents on affirmative action have been on the books since the 1970s, the Court will hear a new challenge to affirmative action policies this week in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin.
The petitioner, Abigail Fisher, applied to the University of Texas in 2008 and was rejected.
Under the University’s “Top Ten Policy,” high school students who graduated in the top 10 percent of their class are automatically offered admission. About 80 percent of each incoming freshman class is admitted under the Top Ten Policy. Fisher did not qualify for admission under these criteria.
The remainder of spots in each class is filled after consideration of each applicant’s specific qualities, such as his or her past academic achievement, application essays, community service and racial or ethnic background.
The latter is the aspect of the policy that Fisher is challenging, alleging she was discriminated against because of her race.
It seems that opponents of affirmative action, including Fisher, do not grasp the nature of college admissions: it is an inclusionary process rather than exclusionary.
Because there are multiple applicants in an admissions pool for each available spot, admissions officials must choose which qualities and experiences they want to include in the student body, not traits they want to exclude.
For instance, denying admission to candidates with a history of low-test scores is not the primary goal of an admissions board. Rather, they place a higher premium on a candidate’s leadership experience or academic excellence.
Including favorable traits — such as diversity of race, religion, socioeconomic status and life experience — is more desirable than excluding candidates based on individual differences.
In choosing these traits, applicants are considered individually on a case-by-case basis and not in comparison to other applicants. In this way, universities can customize and fine-tune the traits of their student body to emphasize diversity.
Larger universities such as ASU don’t encounter as many issues with affirmative action policies as smaller schools do. Harvard University, for example, accepts about 6 percent of applicants while ASU accepts about 90 percent of applicants.
ASU, with a student population of about 70,000, has more spots and is able to accept a wider range of candidates into the University. Institutions such as University of Michigan or University of Texas (with student populations of between 40,000 and 50,000) have many applicants they cannot accept.
In considering Fisher, the Court may decide to uphold the race-conscious plan the University of Texas uses to fill the 20 percent of slots remaining for those students not in the top 10 percent of their high school class as consistent with their ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger, or it may strike it down, or it may overrule the Grutter precedent entirely, striking down most other race-conscious admissions programs across the country.
An applicant is much more than the sum of their experiences and abilities: College admissions are as much about potential, as past achievement.
Reach the columnist at skthoma4@asu.edu or follow her at @SavannahKThomas
