Higher ed. leaders address what's next in affirmative action

Updated 4:00 PM July 28, 2003

Higher ed. leaders address what's next in affirmative action

By Laurel Thomas Gnagey

The leaders of 48 colleges, universities and organizations representing higher education met at Harvard University July 16 to discuss how to move forward with affirmative action efforts following the Supreme Court decisions last month in two lawsuits against U-M.

The leaders addressed how to interpret the court's decisions into new procedures that will allow the use of race as a factor in admissions, President Mary Sue Coleman said in remarks during a media briefing that followed the event. "Our job today is to find the best way to implement policies that will enable us to shape diverse student populations within constitutional limits," Coleman said. "Justice [Sandra Day] O'Connor has given us appropriate latitude in her observation that universities should be provided with 'a degree of deference' regarding our decisions.

"Yet she also clearly indicated that any 'race-conscious admissions policies must be limited in time.' And that presents our biggest challenge. Within the limits the law allows, how can we best design policies that will move us toward the day that our society no longer needs our universities to provide the affirmative steps we have made available for the past three decades? There is an urgency to this question, and today we are beginning the next phase of our journey."

That next phase, said Oberlin College President Nancy Schrom Dye, will involve more than higher education. "We need a much broader interpretation of how society can create more opportunity," Dye said. "Even though some of us already have them, we need to build even more robust partnerships with the public schools. We must have serious conversations about educational access and opportunity." The leaders said their conversation at the Harvard event did not get into specific plans for how to eliminate the need for affirmative action in 25 years, but Dye said, "It is safe to say, that no one at this meeting thinks we need to have affirmative action forever."

In the meantime, leaders at the conference say they will attempt collectively, and at their individual institutions, to find race-conscious admissions policies that will meet the court's definition of narrowly tailored and stand up to the many legal challenges already being mounted by those opposed to affirmative action. Their discussion included the nuts and bolts of how to have a more individualized review of applications—which the Supreme Court declared as the proper way to conduct admissions that are narrowly tailored—in the face of tens of thousands of applications at some universities. "There's a lot of work to be done," said Jared Cohon, president of Carnegie Mellon University. Participants agreed there is no cookie-cutter approach to handling admissions on all college campuses.

Leaders also said they need to do a better job explaining the importance of diversity on college campuses and beyond, including conducting more research on its benefits. More research also is needed on the value of educational testing and the definition of "merit" in admissions.

The July 16 event—sponsored by U-M, The Harvard Civil Rights Project, the American Council on Education and the Association of American Universities—is the first in a series of programs around the country examining the impact of the court's rulings.

Higher ed. leaders address what's next in affirmative action

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