Ensuring Equal Access to Educational Opportunity. Part 2: Higher Education

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Part 2: HIGHER EDUCATION

(Look out for Part 1 on K-12 education)

CALL TO ACTION: in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling prohibiting affirmative action,

Let's ensure "Equal Opportunity for All", in practice.

The underlying assumptions of the Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action are:

• Historical state-sponsored racism and segregation no longer impact the present.

• The limited affirmative action we extended previously is sufficient to redress centuries of historical harms.

• Interpersonal racial discrimination is a thing of the past.

• We now live in a "colorblind equal-opportunity meritocracy".

...OK, then let's make that "equal-opportunity meritocracy" a reality, in practice!

Let's ensure equal access to higher education, the biggest potential engine of upward mobility.

Even with affirmative action, Black and Latino student representation has been steadily dropping. Successive Court rulings had already severely limited the scope of affirmative action. Since 2016, race could only be considered as a “factor of a factor of a factor”. For example, leadership experience that is grounded in racial identity.

Upward mobility rates for Blacks vary significantly by neighborhood, because access to opportunity varies significantly by geography.

• Black Americans tend to live in lower-income neighborhoods with less access to opportunity than Whites and Asians at every income level.

• This disparity in geographical access to opportunity is largely due to both contemporary discrimination and the persistent legacies of historical discrimination.

• If economic and educational disparities were due to “culture” or IQ, then Black upward mobility would not vary so significantly from one neighborhood to another.

Smaller shares of qualified Black and Latino than White students attend selective colleges. Black and Latino students who score above average on the SAT or ACT attend selective colleges at a far lower rate than White students with the same qualifications.

Family income level is more important to college graduation in the U.S. than academic achievement. Meritocracy, or inheritocracy? The U.S. has among the lowest rates of educational and income mobility in the high-income nations (OECD).

Race plays an important role in admission to highly selective institutions, independent of the role of income. White students are more likely than Black and Latino students to be admitted at every income level.

Roughly 40% of wealthy White students are admitted to a highly selective college, much more than students of any other race or income level. Meritocracy, or inheritocracy?

A 2017 New York Times analysis revealed that 38 colleges (incl. 5 in the Ivy League) had more students from the top 1% than the bottom 60%.

Let's ensure that college admissions are an equal-opportunity meritocracy.

Unearned advantages for wealthy (and largely White) students in elite college admissions allow them to hoard opportunity, inherit class status, and block upward mobility for others.

“Affirmative action for the wealthy” takes the form of legacy, donor, and athletic preferences, and higher ratings on subjective nonacademic factors. A major factor is strong recommendations from guidance counselors and teachers at private schools.

Two studies have identified significant and growing grade inflation in both private and affluent suburban public schools over the last 20 years.

Far more White than Black college applicants benefit from preferential admissions, and many of them do not meet minimum qualifications. Legacy and donor preferences are “race-neutral”, but they largely benefit the wealthy. Thus, they primarily benefit Whites, as the historically-rooted wealth gap acts as a proxy for race.

Far more White than Black college applicants benefit from preferential admissions. Legacy and donor preferences overwhelmingly benefit White applicants, and discriminate against nonwhite, low-income, and immigrant students.

In addition to formal legacy and donor preferences, colleges also extend more informal admission preferences to other unqualified wealthy students. These disproportionately benefit White students, as the historically-rooted wealth gap acts as a proxy for race.

Let’s ensure equal access to opportunity and upward mobility.

The United States has among the lowest rates of income mobility in the high-income nations. The American Dream still exists… but just not in the United States.

U.S. income inequality has been steadily increasing across all races since the 1980s, and is now at historically high Gilded Age levels.

Let's ensure equal access to opportunity and upward mobility, regardless of race or income.

The racial wealth gap has been increasing, rather than decreasing, since the 1960s. Black median household wealth is about one-tenth that of White wealth.

Call to action:

None of us is to blame for the past, but we are all collectively responsible for the future.