Hiding the Politically Obvious

Abstract

What have colleges and universities done to increase student of color enrollment since the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger? This article provides a critical race theory (CRT) snapshot of selective data and institutions since these landmark decisions. We find that even though Grutter gives the go-ahead to use affirmative action, higher education has failed politically to take on this challenge. When taken together, the Gratz and Grutter decisions allow higher education institutions to engage in symbolic affirmative action measures that appear as diversity measures but are operationalized as race neutral when one examines the data of continuing overall declines of students of color at many institutions. The authors conclude with a CRT call for a more expansive affirmative action with higher education administrators doing more to justify affirmative action through Grutter.