Lawsuits move slowly, but the world spins fast. Since Abigail N. Fisher sued the University of Texas at Austin, 3,000 days have elapsed, bringing many changes to college campuses. Although the age-old debate over race-conscious admissions surely will endure, the conversation about campus diversity has broadened in scope. Who gets in still matters. But who a college recruits, and who, once there, gets a chance to thrive, is just as important.
Let’s rewind. The nation met Ms. Fisher in the spring of 2008, a young white woman who had been denied admission to the Texas flagship and wanted to overturn its race-conscious policy. That was before the economy collapsed, yanking higher education into an uncertain era. State funding sagged, family incomes fell, and jobs vanished. Colleges went on recruiting students across a widening socioeconomic gap.
As the recession rolled on, public and private campuses alike had to confront another challenge: maintaining enrollment and revenue amid demographic shifts. Admissions offices peered into a future where high-school cohorts were becoming more diverse and less affluent. Who were tomorrow’s students? And would colleges be ready to serve them? Anxious administrators grappled with those questions.
Read more at The Chronicle of Higher Education: http://chronicle.com/article/As-Fisher-Churned/236906