Ivy League And Elite Universities Scramble To Plan For A Future Without Affirmative Action

This morning, the Supreme Court announced their landmark decision ending race-conscious admissions. As the decision reverberates through higher education, colleges and universities, including Ivy League and other elite institutions, are bracing for impact—many have already begun the process of exploring alternative means of making their admissions processes more equitable without affirmative action.

Last week, Duke University rolled out a financial aid plan that will offer full tuition grants for students from North and South Carolina whose household income is less than $150,000. This plan, which will begin in the coming fall semester, could become a model for other schools seeking to diversify their campus communities while abiding by the Supreme Court’s decision. In addition to full tuition grants, students whose household income is below $65,000 will receive additional benefits, including financial support for housing, dining, and other course-related needs.

Though the university has denied that the program is a direct response to the Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action, the move appears to be tied not only to the end of affirmative action, but also the impending decision in another case targeting President Joe Biden’s student loan debt forgiveness plan. The university’s press release expressly states that the initiative is intended to eliminate lower-income students’ “need for student loans,” and the household income outlined in the initiative notably mirrors the individual income cap that President Biden included in his loan forgiveness plan.

While the decision in favor of Students for Fair Admissions is a historic one that promises to have a significant impact on institutions across the nation, it was not unexpected—oral arguments in October were punctuated with sharp exchanges and clear skepticism from the conservative bloc. Some conservatives on the bench, most notably Justice Clarence Thomas, have expressed dissent regarding race-conscious admissions long before the issue was raised in the court. While a decision has yet to be released regarding student loan forgiveness, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority appears poised to shoot down President Biden’s plan, as the Justices expressed concern that the sweeping plan, costing approximately $400 billion, did not pass through Congress before its release.

With these seismic shifts in the landscape of higher education on the horizon, institutions and adjacent organizations such as the Common App are instituting changes to both ensure the constitutionality of their practices and to ensure the racial and socioeconomic diversity of student populations. In January, the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers urged its members to “examine any admissions or recruitment practices that target populations of a specific race as well as their overall holistic/equity admissions practices.” Meanwhile, in May, the Common App announced that it would permit colleges to hide the racial demographic information on students’ applications from admissions committees.

Duke’s program could be an indication of the measures that colleges and universities will have to adopt in order to avoid precipitous drops in the number of students of color who enroll. Addressing the announcement, Christoph Guttentag, the Dean of Admissions at Duke, stated to Inside Higher Ed: “We’re doing this for the most straightforward of reasons, which is affordability and access. But diversity is not one-dimensional. It manifests in various and interconnected ways, so any additional benefits we’d be grateful for.”

Universities in California and Michigan—states that banned race-conscious admissions in 1996 and 2006, respectively—could also lend insight into how schools can seek to increase diversity after affirmative action. The University of California has notably implemented a statewide guarantee program, in which the top 9% of students at schools in California are guaranteed spots at state universities. Likewise, the University of Michigan system conducted far-reaching recruitment efforts in underserved communities, seeking to increase diversity on campus through race-neutral means.

However, some in higher education remain skeptical that plans easing the burden on lower-income students and other attempts to level the admissions playing field will necessarily preserve or increase racial diversity on campus. The University of Michigan and the University of California submitted briefs to the Supreme Court on behalf of Harvard and UNC, alleging that race-neutral recruitment was not sufficient in diversifying campus communities. As Erica Sanders, Director of Undergraduate Admissions at the University of Michigan, a school which notably faced a state-wide ban on race-conscious admissions in the 1990’s, states to the Associated Press: “Socioeconomic status is not a proxy for race.”