Strategies States Where Affirmative Action is Banned
The Century Foundation | Haley Potter
Written in 2014, this piece outlines “new methods of promoting racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic diversity on campus” employed by the 8 states [now 9]* that have banned use of affirmative action. Creating percent plans (i.e. accepting the top students from each high school), 2) considering socioeconomic factors, 3) funding new financial aid programs, 4) improving recruitment and support, and 4) abolishing legacy admissions are four of the methods.
With these strategies, “[In] 7 out of 11 public flagship universities for which data was available, enrollment of African American and Latino students under race-neutral admissions reached or exceed the level seen in the year before the ban…eliminating race-based affirmative action hasn’t been as disastrous for racial and ethnic diversity as many people worried it would be.”
*States where affirmative action is banned: California (1996), Washington (1998), Florida (1999), Michigan (2006), Nebraska (2008), Arizona (2010), New Hampshire (2012), Oklahoma (2012), and Idaho (2020).