As several high-profile court cases reignite the debate over affirmative action, university administrators are being challenged to consider alternatives to race-conscious policy and develop new strategies for promoting racial/ethnic diversity on their campuses.
In this "post-affirmative action era," scholars have begun to ask how diversity is framed in specific college contexts where affirmative action has been dismantled. When colleges adopt a so-called "race-neutral" admissions policy, how do administrators make sense of diversity on their campus? How do dominant notions about diversity affect institutional policies and practices?
In their recently published paper in the Journal of Diversity in Higher Educationopens in new window, Kristen Glasener, Christian Martell, and Julie Posselt set out to answer these questions.
Drawing from official university documents and interviews with college administrators, the authors explored how diversity is framed at the University of Georgia (UGA), an institution that has operated under a race-neutral admissions policy for more than a decade.
They found six dominant diversity frames:
- Inclusion: Broadening the definition of who or what is "diverse" toward a color-blind understanding of diversity
- Social Mirror: A desire to have campus demographics reflect those of the community in which the institution is situated
- Educational Benefits: Diversity bestows educational benefits on all students
- Courage: Celebrating people, actions, events in an institution's history that show racial progress
- Excellence: Coupling diversity with excellence such that increases in structural diversity make the institution better
- Social Justice: Being critical of institutional practices that lead to educational inequalities for racially minoritized students to remedy past injustices
The authors found calls for broader, more "inclusive" definitions of diversity than those emphasizing race alone. As one administrator explained, the term diversity was so commonplace at UGA that it held no specificity but was instead "in the eye of the beholder."
Administrators adopting this frame described diversity in such universal ways that the term became meaningless, color-blind, and even absurd (e.g., serving "purple" students).
On the other hand, the "educational benefits" and "excellence" frames led administrators to focus less on contentious racial inequalities on campus and more on the benefits of diversity for all students.
Meanwhile, some administrators believed the term diversity was outdated and needed to be replaced with a "social justice" perspective emphasizing oppression rather than mere difference. However, official university documents avoided this frame entirely, favoring terms like "celebration" and "courage" instead.
Consistent with prior research, this finding suggests that when diversity is left open for interpretation, it can become detached from histories of struggle for equality.
Glasener and colleagues conclude that official documents and administrators at UGA espoused multiple, co-existing, and sometimes contradictory diversity frames and suggest that these fragmented and amorphous frames may be a serious liability for institutional leaders. Specifically, divergent diversity frames may be detrimental to the work of advancing racial equity at the institution.
These findings suggest that universities should be clear about how diversity is associated with, but distinct from, ideals like equity, so college administrators can proceed with a common language and shared expectations. As diversity frames change, it appears to be especially important to be explicit about how race relates to current efforts.
The authors suggest other institutions can learn about diversity efforts from UGA's example, as they too may soon find themselves pressured to abandon race-conscious admission policies without a clear plan for keeping race on the radar.
Citation
- Glasener, K. M., Martell, C. A., & Posselt, J. R. (2019). Framing diversity: Examining the place of race in institutional policy and practice post-affirmative action. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 12(1), 3–16. https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000086
Note: This article is in the Educational Psychology, School Psychology & Training topic area. View more articles in the Educational Psychology, School Psychology & Training topic area.