The Education Department is urging colleges to ramp up their diversity efforts in the wake of a June Supreme Court ruling to restrict the use of race-based admission practices at universities.
The Education Department issued a report Thursday outlining ways higher education institutions can promote more diversity in their admission practices, including boosting scholarships and minority recruiting. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona called on local leaders to “break down barriers for underserved students and reimagine pathways into higher education.”
“Our future is brighter when we prepare students of all backgrounds to lead our multiracial democracy together,” Cardona added.
The Supreme Court invalidated Harvard’s and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s admissions practices by ruling they did not comply with the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection. The ruling severely restricted the affirmative action practices used at many higher education institutions to select students from their applicant pools.
While the court ruled that colleges cannot directly use race when considering an application, it noted institutions could consider “an applicant’s discussion of how race affected the applicant’s life” if it was tied to the “quality of character or unique ability.”
The report includes resources for “targeted recruitment, outreach, and pathway programs” in schools, including K–12 schools, community colleges, historically Black colleges and universities. It also urged higher education institutions take “meaningful consideration in admissions to the adversity students have faced,” including “personal experiences of hardship and discrimination, including racial discrimination.”
“Diverse college campuses can provide experiences that increase critical thinking, civic engagement, leadership skills, and cross-racial interaction for all students, and they allow students from all backgrounds the chance to pursue and achieve the benefits of postsecondary education, such as economic and social mobility,” according to the announcement.