Author: Gary Orfield

Publisher: Harvard Education Press

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 154

ISBN-13:

This book, produced by the Harvard Civil Rights Project, focuses on the consequences for student body diversity of eliminating race and ethnicity as factors in university admissions. The more specific focus is on what would happen if college admissions relied entirely on traditional quantitative measures of academic achievement and promise, such as test scores and grade point average. This collection does not address in detail fixing the K-12 pipeline, which civil rights conservatives argue is an adequate substitute for affirmative action in university admissions. The heart of the case for diversity-based affirmative action in admissions (and employment) is that while the attempt to repair the pipeline continues, institutions cannot be allowed to undermine their educational and social missions by excluding capable under-represented minorities. The papers are: (1) "Campus Resegregation and Its Alternatives" (Gary Orfield); (2) "Misconceptions in the Debate Over Affirmative Action in College Admissions" (Thomas J. Kane); (3) "No Alternative: The Effects of Color-Blind Admissions in California" (Jerome Karabel); (4) "Hopwood in Texas: The Untimely End of Affirmative Action" (Jorge Chapa and Vincent A. Lazaro); (5) "The Hopwood Chill: How the Court Derailed Diversity Efforts at Texas A&M" (Susanna Finnell); (6) "Notes from the Field: Higher Education Desegregation in Mississippi" (Robert A. Kronley and Claire V. Handley); (7) "Race and Testing in College Admissions" (Michael T. Nettles, Laura W. Perna, and Catherine M. Millett); (8) "Testing a New Approach to Admissions: The Irvine Experience" (Susan A. Wilbur and Marguerite Bonous-Hammarth); and (9) "An Admissions Process for a Multiethnic Society" (Greg Tanaka, Marguerite Bonous-Hammarth, and Alexander W. Astin). Each paper contains references. (Contains 25 tables and 6 figures.) (SLD)