Changes in Levels of Affirmative Action in College Admissions in Response to Statewide Bans and Judicial Rulings

Abstract

Affirmative action in college admissions was effectively banned in Texas by the Hopwood ruling in 1997, by voter referenda in California and Washington in 1996

Affirmative Action and Racial Segregation

“…A number of papers have estimated difference-in-differences models similar to the ones in this paper in order to study the effects of affirmative action bans, including Antman and Duncan (2015), Backes (2012), Blume and Long (2014), Hill (2016), and Hinrichs (2012Hinrichs ( , 2014.…”

Holistic Admissions After Affirmative Action

“…Our results suggest that holistic admissions has been implemented with greater fidelity in states with affirmative action bans than it has in other states. In "ban states," admissions officers have sought to achieve a diverse student body within a post-affirmative action legal framework (Blume & Long, 2014;Contreras, 2005;Garces, 2012). However, because URM students are less likely to maximize their curriculum, they would be unlikely to benefit in a holistic admissions process even if the relationship between maximizing the curriculum and the probability of admittance was race neutral.…”

“…The practice of comprehensive evaluations-which emphasized consideration of the applicant in the context of his or her environment-was, in part, intended to reverse the declines in enrollment among students of color. There is no evidence, however, that these practices have become another form of racial preferences, as shown by close analysis of comprehensive review at Berkeley (Hout, 2005) and examining national data (Blume & Long, 2014).…”

The effect of banning affirmative action on human capital accumulation prior to college entry

“…Louisiana and Mississippi were both affected by the court ruling that ended affirmative action in Texas, but both states were under desegregation orders, so they may not have been under pressure to comply with the ruling 15 . In addition, neither state's public universities are as selective as the institutions typically affected by bans on racial preferences (see Blume and Long (2014)). Of the affirmative action banning states, the sole remainder is Washington, which voted to ban affirmative action in 1999.…”

“…See Blume and Long (2014) for a nice discussion of the policy environment surrounding affirmative action. 2 We discuss the theoretical literature in greater detail below.…”