Higher education continues to contend with the ramifications of recent Supreme Court decisions affecting race conscious admission policies. These challenges actually present opportunities for educators to develop and implement innovative diversity strategies and advance their goal of increasing access and opportunity on college campuses.
Diversity has long been valued on college campuses as a means of not only increasing access, but also promoting academic and social growth. Colleges and universities inhabit different "leagues" when it comes to the use of race-conscious enrollment practices. Many use race-conscious policies and practices to achieve their mission-driven diversity goals. Some are forbidden from using race and ethnicity due to state laws. Others are permitted to consider race and ethnicity but choose not to do so. But all institutions have a common interest: identifying policies and practices that will create a dynamic, diverse, and successful student body. The recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin and two new suits filed in late 2014 make this topic particularly important for institutions today.
On Monday, January 26, at 12-1 pm Eastern, the College Board's Access & Diversity Collaborative will host a free webinar to explore the opportunities and challenges presented by race-neutral strategies. The webinar will be grounded in a new ADC resource on race-neutral strategies, The Playbook: A Guide to Assist Institutions of Higher Education in Evaluating Race- and Ethnicity-Neutral Policies in Support of their Mission-Related Diversity Goals. The Playbook and many other access- and diversity-focused resources are available for free download at the ADC's website: http://diversitycollaborative.collegeboard.org/.
We encourage you to attend and to extend the invite to your colleagues and coworkers. Space is limited, and registration will close on Thursday, January 22. Click here for more information.