Affirmative action is ending–but holistic admissions can still allow higher education to better reflect society
The U.S. Supreme Court recently overturned affirmative action, prohibiting public education institutions from considering race as a factor in their admission processes. This decision will have broad implications for the future of public education in the United States. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted, it “rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress.”
The goal of affirmative action, when it was originally passed, was to increase the proportion of racialized students, who have historically been excluded from higher education in America. Over the past few decades, affirmative action has been used as an important element of holistic admission policies that consider the applicant as a whole human being, rather than relying solely on their academic testing scores.
With affirmative action off the table, admissions departments across the U.S. are no longer able to take race into consideration. They will need to focus on other approaches to ensure diverse student bodies. In practice, higher education institutions will lean more heavily on holistic admission policies to ensure they meet their diversity, equity, and inclusion goals and create a student body that accurately represents the ethnic and racial makeup of the communities they serve.
The problem with academic-focused admissions
Decades of research highlight the bias inherent in traditional, academic-based standardized tests like the SAT and MCAT, showing how racialized students and students with low socioeconomic status often score lower than students who are white and/or more economically privileged.
Students with a more socioeconomically privileged background have more money, time, and resources to help them succeed. They are less reliant on paid work to support themselves or their families and have greater exposure to tools to help them prepare for, including using costly test preparation services, for admission tests.
When combining the data, racialized students face significant bias in their score on academic-based standardized tests–and the substantial wage gap that exists between white and racialized Americans highlights the generational impact of these issues. What we can see from the data, is that higher education is linked to future lifetime income, so blocking access to higher education perpetuates this wage gap.
Some institutions are reducing their reliance on these standardized tests as a result. For example, the LSAT will no longer be required for admission to U.S. law schools starting in 2025.
A world without affirmative action
In 1996, California Proposition 209 amended the state constitution, prohibiting public education institutions from using affirmative action as a consideration of admission to public colleges in California. As a result, the proportion of Latin(o/a/x), Black, and Native American students in the University of California system dropped significantly.
This does not have to be the case. Diversity in higher education is still possible without affirmative action. Individual schools can make a difference.
Even in the absence of Affirmative Action, UC Davis School of Medicine’s Class of 2026 is the most diverse medical school in America, next to Howard (a historically Black university), and Florida International (which primarily serves the Hispanic community). This achievement was made by focusing on holistic admission policies, in this case by considering the socioeconomic status of applicants alongside academic testing scores.
While holistic admissions processes are made up of many strategies, primary steps include:
- Application process reviews
Review every element of the admission process and remove any barriers faced by racialized applicants. These barriers could include high application and admission fees, or importantly high cut-off scores on academic-based standardized tests.
- Situational judgment tests
This is a testing method that allows program applicants to be evaluated based on how they react to complex, hypothetical situations. Situational judgment tests can help programs evaluate their applicants early on in the admissions process to determine who stands out based on a combination of academics and soft skills. They have also demonstrated that they are reliable as standardized academic tests (although focusing on non-academic areas), but have significantly smaller demographic differences.
- Student recruitment strategies
A ban on affirmative action that prevents institutions from using race as a factor in admissions to higher education programs coupled with limitations placed on DEI offices in states across the country means the end to recruitment strategies specifically marketed to racialized communities.
Academic institutions should make efforts to build authentic partnerships with high schools and undergraduate programs with high levels of diversity that align to their mission. This way, colleges and universities can reach their target audience without a specific focus on race.
- Reconsidering legacy programs
Academic institutions giving greater access to the children of alumni is nothing new. However, it’s been shown that legacy applicants are 25% more likely to be white, making it clear that in order to increase diversity, legacy programs must be carefully reconsidered.
With or without affirmative action, academic institutions have an obligation to build graduating classes that reflect the makeup of the communities they serve, and it’s clear that academic-based standardized tests are problematic when it comes to equity and diversity.
In a country where affirmative action has been banned and race can no longer be used as a consideration in the admissions process, higher education institutions must take a serious look at the current measures they consider when evaluating applicants. We must adopt new and innovative admissions policies that will allow all applicants a fair and equitable chance at their higher education dreams.
Kelly Dore, Ph.D., is VP of science and innovation at Acuity Insights.
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
