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How universities can navigate affirmative action bans to protect diversity in student admissions
Diversity in higher education is under attack as the Supreme Court considers the future of affirmative action, or race-conscious admissions practices, at American colleges and universities. In On the Basis of Race, Lauren S. Foley sheds light on our current crisis, exploring the past, present, and future of this contentious policy.
From Brown v. Board of Education in the mid-twentieth century to the current Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Foley explores how organizations have resisted and complied with public policies regarding race. She examines how admissions officers, who have played an important role in the long fight to protect racial diversity in higher education, work around the law to maintain diversity after affirmative action is banned. Foley takes us behind the curtain of student admissions, shedding light on how multiple universities, including the University of Michigan, have creatively responded to affirmative action bans. On the Basis of Race traces the history of a controversial idea and policy, and provides insight into its uncertain future.
"From non-discrimination mandates after Brown to bans on affirmative action half a century later, Lauren S. Foley compellingly shows how colleges and universities have worked to both adhere to—and evade—the law governing admissions in higher education. This strikingly original book captures the shift from segregation to civil rights, and from civil rights to ‘diversity,’ using key examples to develop a new theory of legal conflict in the United States."
— Charles R. Epp, author of The Rights Revolution: Lawyers, Activists, and Supreme Courts in Comparative Perspective
"On the Basis of Race examines how and why progressives and conservatives have fought to expand or limit opportunities for people of color in higher education. Foley shows us how both sides have employed a strategy of ‘resistant compliance’ to achieve their ends, cleverly finding ways to comply with the letter of the law while also taking intentional steps to defy the spirit of the law."
— Jesse H. Rhodes, author of Ballot Blocked: The Political Erosion of the Voting Rights Act
"Foley explores how US colleges and universities have resisted and complied with public policies regarding race-conscious admissions practices."
"With a prescient insight, Lauren S. Foley has investigated how certain universities upheld racial diversity even under regional affirmative action bans...On The Basis of Race reassured us that there is always a way out of adversity."