Read now [PDF]: Campus Diversity and Student Discontent: The Costs of Race and Ethnic Preferences in College Admissions
The Supreme Court has declared that campus diversity creates numerous education benefits and that race could be used as a factor in pursuit of diversity. As a result, many colleges and universities pass over white and Asian American applicants with better academic preparation, favoring blacks and (to a lesser extent) Hispanics.
Research shows however that racial preference policies create a mismatch of academic qualifications between minorities receiving preferences and the rest of their entering class, and the academic disparities continue throughout college. Especially in the STEM fields, academically mismatched students disproportionately drop out of STEM, change to non-STEM majors, transfer to other schools, and take longer to graduate.
There are also psychological costs associated with campus diversity and disparities. Black students experienced greater first-year “grade shock,” greater discounting of academic feedback, greater alienation, less attachment to the university, and greater dissatisfaction with their overall college experience. Many mismatched students would have gone elsewhere had they known where they ranked. Campus diversity was also correlated with a general sense of campus discontent among non-minority students and faculty, not just URMs.
Prominent pro-diversity researchers now acknowledge that using race as a factor to produce diversity does not produce the positive benefits enumerated by the Supreme Court. Universities are now told that they need to foster feelings of inclusion among URMs to obtain these benefits. Numerical diversity is just the pre-condition.
