Diversity challenged: evidence on the impact of affirmative action

TLDR

Affirmative action in college admissions faces intense legal and public scrutiny, and its future hinges on whether the educational benefits of diversity justify using race as an admissions factor. The book investigates whether increasing minority enrollment enhances the educational experience and justifies affirmative action. Research demonstrates that student diversity broadens learning, prepares students for careers and citizenship, and that these benefits grow with effective campus leadership and support.

Abstract

This book explores what is known about how increasing minority enrollment changes and enriches the educational process. In the courts and in referenda campaigns, affirmative action in college admissions is under full-scale attack. Though it was designed to help resolve a variety of serious racial problems, affirmative action's survival may turn on just one question--whether or not the educational value of diversity is sufficiently compelling to justify consideration of race as a factor in deciding whom to admit to colleges and universities. Challenged is designed to address that question. In chapter after chapter, researchers and policymakers discuss substantial developing evidence showing that diversity of students can and usually does produce a broader educational experience, both in traditional learning and in preparing for jobs, professions, and effective citizenship in a multiracial democracy. The evidence also suggests that such benefits can be significantly increased by appropriate leadership and support on campus. Diversity may be challenged on college campuses today, but the research and evidence in this book shows how diversity works. From the Introduction by Gary Orfield