tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/harvard-university-25969/articlesHarvard University – The Conversation2024-01-05T13:46:53Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2205322024-01-05T13:46:53Z2024-01-05T13:46:53ZWhy does Claudine Gay still work at Harvard after being forced to resign as its president? She’s got tenure<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567952/original/file-20240104-19-mhl9wd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=195%2C0%2C5465%2C3700&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former Harvard President Claudine Gay, left, speaks as former University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill listens during a House hearing in December 2023 − before they both resigned.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/CongressEducationCollegesAntisemitism/fbb72e215baa4326943637b44c623e52/photo?boardId=37be9465fcce45d283d5431cccb20a6a&st=boards&mediaType=audio,photo,video,graphic&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=495&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em><a href="https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/1/3/claudine-gay-resign-harvard/">Harvard University President Claudine Gay</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/03/opinion/claudine-gay-harvard-president.html">resigned on Jan. 2, 2024</a>, less than one month after University of Pennsylvania President <a href="https://www.thedp.com/article/2023/12/penn-president-liz-magill-resigns">Liz Magill stepped down</a>. They called it quits amid uproar among conservative lawmakers and <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-do-universities-owe-their-big-donors-less-than-you-might-think-explain-2-nonprofit-law-experts-219902">several major donors</a> regarding what they saw as Gay’s and Magill’s underwhelming responses to antisemitism on their campuses. In Gay’s case, there were also <a href="https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/harvard-presidents-resignation-highlights-new-conservative-weapon-against-colleges-plagiarism/3234455/">accusation of plagiarism</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>Some members of the public have been surprised to see that <a href="https://apnews.com/article/harvard-president-claudine-gay-resigns-841575b89bcdc062cdf979e647a2539e">both Gay</a> and <a href="https://whyy.org/articles/university-of-pennsylvania-president-liz-magill-resigns-amid-firestorm-over-house-testimony/">Magill remain employed</a> by their universities as professors and researchers. Ray Gibney, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=EQEoODAAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">a management scholar</a> who studies labor relations, explains why university presidents with tenure can remain on faculty and resume their teaching jobs after they leave or lose their administrative positions.</em></p>
<h2>What does having tenure mean?</h2>
<p>Tenure, as the American Association of University Professors defines it, is “<a href="https://www.aaup.org/issues/tenure">an indefinite appointment</a>” that protects academic jobs. Obtaining it is hard and takes years. Universities can fire a tenured professors only <a href="https://www.bestcolleges.com/blog/what-is-tenure/">for cause</a> or under what the association calls “extraordinary circumstances” – such as if their school experiences a financial crisis or their department gets eliminated.</p>
<p>Tenure is <a href="https://theconversation.com/academic-tenure-what-it-is-and-why-it-matters-162325">university specific</a>. If a tenured professor gets hired by another school, they lose those protections unless their new academic institution grants them again.</p>
<p>Scholars who serve as the president, provost or deans have different responsibilities than regular faculty. </p>
<p>Regardless of whether an administrator comes from a traditional academic background or a nontraditional background such as business or politics, the <a href="https://gbirnlaw.com/blog/no-tenure-no-contract-the-importance-of-tenure-and-retreat-rights-for-college-and-university-presidents-part-1/#:%7E:text=A%20prime%20example%20of%20the,a%20grant%20of%20academic%20tenure.">employment offer usually includes</a> a <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/09/09/should-nonacademics-who-become-college-presidents-also-get-tenured-faculty-positions">tenured faculty position</a>.</p>
<p>University presidents serve at the pleasure of their institution’s board of trustees. The board can revoke their administrative role. But revoking a scholar’s tenure and the job security that goes with it requires a formal process and investigation.</p>
<p>However, <a href="https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/ilj/vol91/iss1/4/">universities rarely end tenure</a>, even when they find evidence that a tenured professor is incompetent. </p>
<h2>Does it matter that Gay and Magill stepped down instead of being fired?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.harvard.edu/blog/2024/01/02/statement-from-the-harvard-corporation-president-gay/">Gay</a> and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/business/live-news/liz-magill/index.html">Magill</a> both resigned as president of their universities. Because neither quit their faculty jobs, they remain employed by Harvard and Penn, respectively.</p>
<p>Whether administrators quit or are fired has little bearing on whether they can hang on to their tenured faculty position. When administrators are fired it can justify an investigation of whether there’s cause for their dismissal as tenured faculty too. But it’s not a guarantee.</p>
<p>To remove either from the faculty roles, the university-specific process of revocation of tenure would need to be initiated. Every college and university defines its own reasons for tenure revocation, with moral turpitude and excessive absenteeism common <a href="https://www.independent.org/store/book.asp?id=14">grounds for dismissal</a>.</p>
<h2>What might happen to their salaries and other compensation?</h2>
<p>University administrators generally do not teach classes. The culture of the academy is to provide administrators who are returning to faculty ranks with a short period – typically one semester – to review and update course teaching materials to get ready to teach again.</p>
<p>During this time period, they are often paid their administrator salaries. However, compensation is usually adjusted back to comparable faculty salaries upon their <a href="https://dc.swosu.edu/aij/vol3/iss2/8">return to faculty ranks</a>. </p>
<p>Neither former president’s salary has been made public, since they were both recent hires and those details are typically released with a significant delay. Gay, according to media reports, <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/much-money-college-university-presidents-214953719.html">earns at least US$880,000 a year</a>. <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/education/liz-magill-university-pennsylvania-contract-severance-20231214.html">Magill’s predecessor made $1.56 million</a>, plus millions more in deferred compensation.</p>
<h2>What’s the purpose of tenure?</h2>
<p>It’s primarily supposed to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X06009125">foster academic research</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/707211">academic freedom</a>. Once granted tenure, professors and other faculty members may feel more free to research topics that might not be politically popular or that their superior might not approve.</p>
<p>Having tenure also makes it easier for professors to discuss sensitive but appropriate topics with their students without fear of reprisal. </p>
<h2>What would it take for them to be fired?</h2>
<p>Firing any tenured faculty member is a lengthy process.</p>
<p>Even if it doesn’t involve a professor who got caught up in a contentious news cycle, the school would <a href="https://catalog.upenn.edu/faculty-handbook/ii/ii-e/">form a committee</a> to evaluate any possible charges. The process can take <a href="https://www.psucollegian.com/news/campus/penn-state-aaup-chapter-releases-statement-regarding-firing-process-against-penn-state-professor/article_a15eeaba-74c5-11ec-b265-ff940de6a9a3.html">months</a> or <a href="https://www.westword.com/news/ward-churchills-return-to-cu-boulder-9008153">years</a>.</p>
<p>Given the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/20/business/harvard-president-claudine-gay-plagiarism/index.html">allegations of plagarism</a> in Gay’s case, she would appear to be in a more precarious situation, but by no means would her dismissal be guaranteed.</p>
<h2>What’s changing with tenure?</h2>
<p>The share of <a href="https://www.insightintodiversity.com/aaup-releases-first-study-on-tenure-since-2004-revealing-major-changes-in-faculty-career-tracks/">nontenured faculty is growing quickly</a>. Those professors and lecturers, who outnumber professors with tenure on U.S. campuses, generally teach more courses and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0160449X221142618">earn less money</a>.</p>
<p>This creates a double incentive for universities, which essentially get more labor at a cheaper price. This arrangement can leave academics scrambling with little notice due to a <a href="https://www.aaup.org/article/end-faculty-tenure-and-transformation-higher-education">lack of job security</a>.</p>
<p>Tenure, for now, is keeping Gay and Magill on the payrolls of Harvard and Penn. It is possible, but highly unlikely, that proceedings will be initiated to dismiss either for cause.</p>
<p>I’m anticipating <a href="https://www.aaup.org/article/erosion-support-education-and-tenure-iowa">a resurgence</a> in the calls to do away with tenure.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220532/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ray Gibney does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Barring evidence of moral turpitude or excessive absenteeism, former administrators are very hard to force out.Ray Gibney, Associate Professor of Management, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2199022023-12-20T15:59:44Z2023-12-20T15:59:44ZWhat do universities owe their big donors? Less than you might think, explain 2 nonprofit law experts<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566742/original/file-20231219-15-day70k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=348%2C274%2C3807%2C2455&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Billionaire investor and Harvard alum Bill Ackman has voiced his objections to the school's current president.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/UniversalMusicPershing/a5060a0466d84e179d3bcbfde643e66a/photo?Query=ackman&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=45&currentItemNo=4">AP Photo/Andrew Harnik</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Exchanging gifts with family and friends can become fraught with contradictory emotions. Instead of gratitude, the recipients of expensive gifts may wind up feeling indebted to the givers. And the givers can have regrets too.</p>
<p>The same kinds of complicated <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10495142.2021.1905134">motivations and expectations</a> can sour relations between big donors and the institutions they support.</p>
<p>This dynamic has been playing out in a very public fashion lately with some <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/12/11/1218556147/heres-the-latest-fallout-at-harvard-mit-and-penn-after-the-antisemitism-hearing">high-profile donors to prestigious U.S. universities</a>. At issue for these donors is the schools’ response to debates and demonstrations on their campuses after Hamas’ terrorist attacks on Israel and the Israeli government’s military campaign in Gaza that followed.</p>
<h2>Disappointed donors</h2>
<p>Notably, hedge fund manager <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/12/business/bill-ackman-harvard-antisemitism.html">Bill Ackman has complained</a> that Harvard University officials, including President Claudine Gay, have not “heeded his advice on a variety of topics,” including Harvard’s handling of antisemitism and how it should invest his donations.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/university-of-pennsylvania-president-liz-magill-congressional-testimony-antisemitism-backlash-97376d49">Ross Stevens, another financier</a>, threatened on Dec. 7, 2023, to <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/12/07/upenn-antisemitism-magill-100-million-donation">take back the US$100 million</a> he gave the University of Pennsylvania through a complex transaction in 2017 “absent a change in leadership and values at Penn.”</p>
<p>In a letter <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ross-stevens-letter-pull-penn-donation-president-2023-12">Stevens released to the media, he alleged</a> that Liz Magill, who was serving as the university’s president, had “enabled and encouraged antisemitism and a climate of fear and harassment at Penn.” </p>
<p>Magill, also on Dec. 7, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/12/07/liz-magill-university-of-pennsylvania-antisemitism/">defended herself from those accusations</a> and related criticism from members of Congress, saying: “A call for genocide of Jewish people is … evil, plain and simple.” She <a href="https://penntoday.upenn.edu/announcements/message-from-scott-bok">resigned on Dec. 9</a>.</p>
<p>Other high-profile donors who have also voiced their dissatisfaction regarding Penn include <a href="https://www.thedp.com/article/2023/10/penn-jon-huntsman-jr-wharton-halts-donations-magill">Jon Huntsman Jr.</a>, a former U.S. ambassador to China and Utah governor, and cosmetics tycoon <a href="https://www.thedp.com/article/2023/10/penn-lauder-reexamining-support">Ronald S. Lauder</a>.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=l-vyPm0AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">scholars of how the law</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=dgewAGoAAAAJ">governs nonprofits</a>, we think these developments suggest that now is a good time to review what donors do and don’t have a right to demand.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1732881220927902140"}"></div></p>
<h2>What restrictions apply</h2>
<p><a href="https://law.justia.com/cases/massachusetts/supreme-court/1986/397-mass-820-2.html">All donations</a> to a charity <a href="https://www.ali.org/publications/show/charitable-nonprofit-organizations/">must support its overall purposes</a>. That is, a hospital can’t take the money it receives from donors and give it to, say, an <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=410504">animal shelter operating 500 miles away</a>.</p>
<p>Donors may request specific restrictions on the use of their charitable gifts in an agreement negotiated before the donation is made. And when gifts are solicited through a specific fundraising campaign, such as a bid to raise money for a new building or for scholarships, that money must be spent accordingly.</p>
<p>State attorneys general and, ultimately, the courts <a href="https://scholarship.kentlaw.iit.edu/cklawreview/vol85/iss2/3/?utm_source=scholarship.kentlaw.iit.edu">have the power to regulate charities</a>. But donors have some tools to police adherence to the restriction they placed on their gifts. </p>
<p>One way they can do this is by threatening to withhold gifts that they had planned to make unless the charity they have been funding changes course. Depending on the state laws that <a href="https://www.ali.org/publications/show/charitable-nonprofit-organizations/">apply to charities</a>, donors may be able to sue for enforcement or reserve the right to do so in gift agreements. </p>
<p>Some donors include in their gift agreements a “<a href="https://www.ali.org/publications/show/charitable-nonprofit-organizations/">gift-over</a>.” This kind of provision redirects the gift to another charity of the donor’s choice if the original recipient violates specified terms.</p>
<p>Promises of future donations from past donors have always allowed donors to informally exercise some degree of influence.</p>
<p>But in the current wrangling between donors and universities over claims of antisemitism on campus, threats to forgo future donations have been explicitly tied to all sorts of university actions, such as the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/26/us/university-of-pennsylvania-donors-israel-hamas.html">statements universities either make or do not make</a> regarding international relations.</p>
<p>The threats have become angrier and more public than in the past. Some of the regret and dissatisfaction is being expressed via <a href="https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/marc-rowan-to-funders-show-upenn-that-words-matter/">op-eds and open letters</a>. And the lengths donors have taken to assert leverage have grown more extreme.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566747/original/file-20231219-21-s59jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two women in professional attire speak into microphones." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566747/original/file-20231219-21-s59jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566747/original/file-20231219-21-s59jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566747/original/file-20231219-21-s59jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566747/original/file-20231219-21-s59jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566747/original/file-20231219-21-s59jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566747/original/file-20231219-21-s59jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566747/original/file-20231219-21-s59jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Harvard President Claudine Gay, left, testified alongside Penn President Liz Magill before a House committee on Dec. 5, 2023, regarding antisemitism on college campuses. Magill resigned four days later.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/dr-claudine-gay-president-of-harvard-university-liz-magill-news-photo/1833206910?adppopup=true">Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What charities can do</h2>
<p>Charities can take some solace in the law.</p>
<p>When donors make charitable gifts, they must irrevocably transfer that property to the charity receiving it. Except in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/15/us/yale-returns-20-million-to-an-unhappy-patron.html">very rare exceptions</a>, disappointed donors <a href="https://theconversation.com/disappointed-donors-cant-count-on-getting-their-charitable-money-back-93635">can’t get their assets back</a>.</p>
<p>In 1995, for example, Yale returned a $20 million gift to Lee Bass, an heir to a Texas oil fortune. Bass objected to the way the university was using that donation, which was supposed to <a href="http://archives.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/95_07/bass.htmlBass">support the study of Western civilization</a>. He reached an impasse with Yale after surprising the school’s leaders with a demand they refused to accommodate: that he would personally get to approve four new professors.</p>
<p>And if a <a href="https://www.wealthmanagement.com/philanthropy/no-charitable-deduction-incomplete-gift">donor attaches too many strings</a> to a gift, that can render it ineligible for the <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-the-charitable-deduction-an-economist-explains-162647">charitable deduction</a>, missing out on a tax break. Just as with personal gifts, gifts with too many strings aren’t really gifts at all.</p>
<p>Although donors who have negotiated special conditions in a gift agreement may assert their rights to sue over a charity’s broken promises, that can take a lot of time and energy, while <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/11/education/11princeton.html">squandering money on legal costs</a>. This process can also anger other donors, causing the benefactor to ultimately lose influence with the charity.</p>
<h2>A few tips</h2>
<p>In the University of Pennsylvania case, about two months after the donors began their public pressure campaign, <a href="https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/update-penn-leadership">Penn’s president</a> and the chair of its board of trustees <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/12/09/1218415525/penn-president-liz-magill-resigns-antisemitism-hearing">had stepped down</a>. They resigned in the wake of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-university-presidents-find-it-hard-to-punish-advocating-genocide-college-free-speech-codes-are-both-more-and-less-protective-than-the-first-amendment-219566">contentious congressional hearing</a>.</p>
<p>In this case, some of the disappointed donors got their wish – with an assist from conservative lawmakers. Congress doesn’t usually get involved in these disputes, and with good reason. <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/non-profit_organizations#">Nonprofits are private institutions using private assets</a>, even if the assets are meant to advance purposes that are, ultimately, in the public interest.</p>
<p>So here is our practical advice for donors and the institutions that rely on them.</p>
<p>Donors shouldn’t try to control a charity through their gifts after the fact. The time to establish limits is before you’ve signed off on those gifts.</p>
<p>Charities should reject gifts that are offered with strings attached that they aren’t happy about. If <a href="https://www.501c3.org/kb/what-are-restricted-funds/">gifts have restrictions</a>, charities should <a href="https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p3833.pdf">be aware of that and adhere to them</a>.</p>
<p>We fear that the failure on either side in the controversy now affecting several prestigious schools to abide by this basic guidance can potentially harm not only the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/24/business/philanthropy-colleges-harvard-upenn-israel/index.html">freedom and academic integrity</a> of a university, as many observers have noted, but also the freedom and integrity of the entire nonprofit sector.</p>
<p>The best charitable gifts, like the best personal gifts, are not meant as a means to control the recipients.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219902/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Threats from disappointed donors over the language used during campus protests about the Israel-Hamas conflict have become angrier and more public than in the past.Ellen P. Aprill, Professor of Tax Law Emerita, Loyola Law School Los AngelesJill Horwitz, Professor of Law and Medicine, University of California, Los AngelesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2195662023-12-11T19:23:30Z2023-12-11T19:23:30ZWhy university presidents find it hard to punish advocating genocide − college free speech codes are both more and less protective than the First Amendment<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564911/original/file-20231211-30-y3c9sh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C14%2C4727%2C3137&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Harvard President Claudine Gay, University of Pennsylvania then-President Elizabeth Magill and MIT President Sally Kornbluth testify before Congress on Dec. 5, 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/dr-claudine-gay-president-of-harvard-university-liz-magill-news-photo/1833208996?adppopup=true">Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If a student were to walk off the Harvard campus and onto a street in the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and argue for the genocide of Jews, the U.S. Constitution would bar prosecuting her for hate speech.</p>
<p>If the same student left her perch on the sidewalk and returned to the Harvard campus to continue the rant, the student could be silenced by campus police and either suspended or expelled from the university under <a href="https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/student-handbook/">the school’s code of conduct</a>. </p>
<p>The same is true for many other campuses across the nation, including the University of Pennsylvania and MIT. Private colleges and universities have speech codes that allow them to punish certain speech. But in their Dec. 6, 2023, testimony before Congress <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/opinion/college-presidents-antisemitism.html">about antisemitism on their campuses</a>, Presidents Elizabeth Magill of UPenn, Sally Kornbluth of MIT and Claudine Gay of Harvard failed to clearly state that, when pressed by U. S. Rep. Elise Stefanik to explain what would happen if someone on campus called for the genocide of Jews. Magill <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/education/4352383-upenn-board-of-trustees-chairman-resigns-following-university-presidents-exit/">just resigned</a>, in large part over the furor that followed.</p>
<p>I taught undergraduates argumentation and First Amendment law for 15 years at Syracuse University and have written a user’s guide on the First Amendment: <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/W/bo156864042.html">When Freedom Speaks</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564929/original/file-20231211-26-x3hctl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A large crowd of protestors, some holding signs." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564929/original/file-20231211-26-x3hctl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564929/original/file-20231211-26-x3hctl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564929/original/file-20231211-26-x3hctl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564929/original/file-20231211-26-x3hctl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564929/original/file-20231211-26-x3hctl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564929/original/file-20231211-26-x3hctl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564929/original/file-20231211-26-x3hctl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Palestinian supporters gather for a protest at Columbia University on Oct. 12, 2023, in New York.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/IsraelPalestiniansProtestsExplainer/7fbba5a27e194932a0ab92fcb991ec80/photo?Query=university%20hamas%20%20palestinian&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=145&currentItemNo=17">AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I am surprised by the presidents’ failure <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VtAZBvmzcQ">to respond clearly</a> to Stefanik’s question. The primary purpose of schools is to educate. Private colleges and universities are governed by codes of conduct that support and carry out that objective. </p>
<p>Although private colleges and universities can and often do attempt to recreate the <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/amendment-1/">broad boundaries of protected speech provided by the First Amendment</a>, those boundaries can legally be narrowed by their educational mission. They do this because hatred can poison a healthy learning environment and impair the ability of targeted students to participate fully. </p>
<p>Public colleges generally must apply broader constitutional standards regarding speech on campus. But campus codes at private colleges and universities seek to resolve the conflict between the right to speak freely and the educational mission of the institution. The ham-handed and over-legalistic responses by the three university presidents show how this attempt to balance speech and safety can create confusion, conflict and the opportunity for selective enforcement decisions based on academic fashion, not values of free and open debate.</p>
<h2>Private restrictions; public free speech</h2>
<p>Words matter. As long as the words don’t include a realistic threat that sticks, stones and worse will soon follow, the <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/amendment-1/">First Amendment</a> protects them from repression by the government. </p>
<p>Constitutionally speaking, ideas – whether they be mainstream or scorned – <a href="https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/incitement-to-imminent-lawless-action/">that do not incite violence</a> or <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt1-7-5-6/ALDE_00013807/">intentionally terrorize the target</a> are permissible speech. The First Amendment requires such ideas be available to the public to examine and criticize. Hyperbolic hate speech, even speech that endorses genocide or calls for <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/article/white-supremacy-returned-mainstream-politics/">forced racial and ethnic division</a>, cannot be criminally prosecuted by states or the federal government. Those words might offend and frighten, but they are often part and parcel of emotionally charged political speech.</p>
<p>Harvard provides an example of how campus conduct codes restrict speech that would normally be allowed under the First Amendment. The <a href="https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/student-handbook/guidelines-for-open-debate-protest-and-dissent/">student handbook</a> states that the free exchange of ideas must proceed within the “bounds of reasoned dissent.” The First Amendment does not demand any such limitation on speech, and state and federal governments are constitutionally prohibited from establishing or enforcing any such commitments. </p>
<p><a href="https://catalog.upenn.edu/pennbook/code-of-student-conduct/">The code of conduct at the University of Pennsylvania</a> requires the members of its community to “respect the health and safety of others.” Under the First Amendment, though, state and federal governments are constitutionally prohibited from requiring such limits.</p>
<p><a href="https://policies.mit.edu/policies-procedures/90-relations-and-responsibilities-within-mit-community/95-harassment">MIT prohibits harassment</a>, defined as “public and personal tirades.” The First Amendment provides no such moral guidelines. It does not distinguish between truth or lies, myth or reality, virtue or villainy. It only creates a space to speak where the government has limited power to interfere.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564932/original/file-20231211-27-iji2rm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A screenshot of a letter announcing the resignation of UPenn President Liz Magill." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564932/original/file-20231211-27-iji2rm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564932/original/file-20231211-27-iji2rm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564932/original/file-20231211-27-iji2rm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564932/original/file-20231211-27-iji2rm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564932/original/file-20231211-27-iji2rm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564932/original/file-20231211-27-iji2rm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564932/original/file-20231211-27-iji2rm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Dec. 9, 2023, announcement of President Elizabeth Magill’s resignation, by Scott L. Bok, chair of the Penn Board of Trustees.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://penntoday.upenn.edu/announcements/message-from-scott-bok">UPenn website</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Selective enforcement?</h2>
<p>Yet despite universities’ codes of conduct, there is a growing perception – supported by the highly technical and qualified answers given at the hearing by the college presidents – that they and other colleges and universities are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/opinion/antisemitism-college-free-speech.html">selective in their application of conduct codes</a> and use them to promote a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/08/opinions/israel-palestine-antisemitism-american-universities-zakaria/index.html">political agenda</a>. </p>
<p>In situations involving race and gender, schools have been quick to warn against, rein in or punish speech that administrators find offensive. In 2017, <a href="https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2017/6/5/2021-offers-rescinded-memes/">Harvard rescinded admission offers to 10 students</a> who posted sexually explicit memes, some targeting minority groups. Stefanik, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/harvard-bans-cisheterosexism-but-shrugs-at-antisemitism-95a2c5d7">in a Wall Street Journal op-ed</a>, wrote that in 2022, as part of mandatory anti-bias training, Harvard warned its undergraduate students that <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/harvard-bans-cisheterosexism-but-shrugs-at-antisemitism-95a2c5d7">cisheterosexism, fatphobia and using the wrong pronouns was abusive</a>. </p>
<p>In 2016, several colleges issued proposed guidelines regarding <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/10/28/enjoy-the-holiday-without-being-extremely-offensive-some-colleges-advise-students-on-halloween-costumes/">offensive Halloween costumes</a>. In 2013, two students at Lewis & Clark College were charged with discrimination or harassment for <a href="https://www.thefire.org/cases/lewis-clark-college-two-students-guilty-harassment-racial-jokes-party">hosting a private, racially themed party</a>. In 2006, the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse attempted to <a href="https://www.thefire.org/cases/university-wisconsin-la-crosse-censorship-student-magazine">limit printing of a satirical article</a> deemed by the administration to threaten the recruitment and retention of students from underrepresented groups, although that decision was later reversed. </p>
<p>In contrast, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/12/harvard-mit-upenn-free-speech-congressional-hearings/676278/">Jewish students at the three universities</a> whose presidents testified in Congress accuse their schools of failing to <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/mit-faces-backlash-not-expelling-155058180.html">provide a clear response to alleged repeated harassment</a> of Jewish students and staff members. </p>
<h2>Advocates for campus free speech</h2>
<p>But rather than punishing certain speech, others call for colleges and universities <a href="https://www.thefire.org/news/fire-congress-university-presidents-dont-expand-censorship-end-it">to hold fast to the principle underlying First Amendment freedoms</a>: More speech, not less, leads to a healthy democracy. </p>
<p>Proponents of robust speech protections on campus argue that codes that confine speech to polite dialogue <a href="https://www.thefire.org/news/fire-congress-university-presidents-dont-expand-censorship-end-it">stifle the ability to learn</a> about <a href="https://www.thefire.org/news/blogs/eternally-radical-idea/coronavirus-and-failure-marketplace-ideas">different perspectives and truths</a>, which sometimes only find expression in heated diatribes. Instead, they propose that, in addition to clear condemnation, educational institutions should respond to hateful speech with <a href="https://campusfreespeechguide.pen.org/pen-principles/">countermessaging and dialogue as well as support for targeted individuals and groups</a>. </p>
<p>Many of today’s students have little understanding or respect for a campus – and by inference, a democracy – where all ideas are subject to scrutiny, particularly those that are loathsome to them. To me, <a href="https://buckleyinstitute.com/annual-surveys/">the data is alarming</a>: </p>
<ul>
<li>46% of students support shout-downs of speakers with whom they disagree.</li>
<li>51% of students believe some topics should be banned from being debated on campus.</li>
<li>45% of students believe that physical violence is justified in response to hate speech.</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="https://pen.org/about-us/">PEN America</a>, a 100-year-old organization dedicated to celebrating and protecting creative expression, urges colleges and universities to use caution when attempting to balance speech with safety. </p>
<p>Others warn that codes of conduct <a href="https://www.thefire.org/news/aclu-executive-director-delivers-blistering-critique-campus-speech-codes">offer a false sense of safety to targeted students</a>. Their point: Unless such codes are carefully crafted and applied only to speech that creates physical harm or terror, they will succeed mainly in <a href="https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/twitter-hate-speech-and-the-costs-of-keeping-quiet/">driving hatred underground into echo chambers</a>, where it tends to become more extreme and more dangerous.</p>
<p><em>This article was updated to clarify that the example from the University of Wisconsin occurred at the La Crosse campus.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219566/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lynn Greenky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>University codes of conduct support their mission to educate. But it’s not easy to balance those codes with the values of free speech, as the resignation of a prominent university president shows.Lynn Greenky, Professor Emeritus of Communication and Rhetorical Studies, Syracuse UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2139942023-09-21T04:12:41Z2023-09-21T04:12:41ZPolitics with Michelle Grattan: ANU Vice-Chancellor Brian Schmidt on the challenges universities face<p>Australia’s higher education sector is under heavy scrutiny. Still recovering from the impact of COVID and criticised for its treatment of staff, it faces strong pressures to step up its performance.</p>
<p>The government launched a broad <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-universities-accord-could-see-the-most-significant-changes-to-australian-unis-in-a-generation-194738">review of the sector</a> in late 2022 to inform a Universities Accord. The interim report was <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-job-ready-graduates-scheme-for-uni-fees-is-on-the-chopping-block-but-what-will-replace-it-209974">released in July</a>, with the full report coming in December. Professor Brian Schmidt, is one of Australia’s most eminent academics, an astrophysicist who shared a Nobel Prize in 2011. Schmidt has been Vice-Chancellor at the Australian National University since 2016, a role he leaves at the end of the year.</p>
<p>The Universities Accord <a href="https://www.education.gov.au/australian-universities-accord/resources/accord-interim-report">interim report</a> suggests 55% of jobs by 2050 will require a higher education qualification. At the moment, the share sits at 36%. To reach that target, Schmidt says institutions, secondary educators and governments will need to work together:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The single most important thing, is our students when they finish high school have to be university ready. Universities are trying to fix the problems and shortcomings of our [Kindergarten to Year 12] system or even pre-K-12 system. We are the last line of defence.</p>
<p>Once students have graduated and they are university ready, then certainly here at ANU, we find that the access to university is not level. Why? Because studying full time at university is full time. And the notion that they’re going to go work a full-time job and study full-time seems possible and is done by many of the students from lower socio-economic backgrounds, but it puts them at a huge disadvantage. It’s just really difficult to do that. </p>
<p>So we really need to focus on adequate support for students, especially in that first year or two when they come to university so that they can study alongside everyone else on equal basis.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Schmidt believes universities are facing their “Uber moment” - where big tech companies like LinkedIn, Meta, and Microsoft “take out the middle man” (higher education) and team up with leading institutions like Harvard or Oxford to offer a streamlined, recognised course at a fraction of the cost. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I guess the question is, do I want to be at the ANU competing with that? The answer is no, because I’m going to lose. Their cost structures are cheaper than mine, but what they’re offering is not what I’m trying to offer. I’m trying to provide people the ability to do more than just the homogenised offering and get to talk to the people who write the textbooks [and] get to live on campus with a bunch of people not just doing the IT degree you are doing.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>With not enough academic jobs available to employ the PhD graduates who want them, are we turning out too many? </p>
<blockquote>
<p>This will be controversial. But the answer I think right now, given the state of the economy, probably yes.</p>
<p>It’s not just academic jobs, we don’t expect all of our PhDs to go get academic jobs. It’s never been that way and it shouldn’t be that way. What we do expect is those PhD students to go get jobs where their skills of research and knowledge add a lot of value to their job. And that’s the part where the Australian economy isn’t very developed.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The accord’s interim report also highlights the <a href="https://theconversation.com/more-obviously-needs-to-be-done-how-to-make-australian-universities-safe-from-sexual-violence-210057">rate of sexual harassment and assault</a> experienced by students on campuses. A parliamentary inquiry has recommended an independent taskforce to oversee universities’ performance in dealing with this problem. Schmidt agrees the situation is unnacceptable, but believes institutions should have the final say in how and what action is taken. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Sexual violence is, I am sad to say, rife across Australia […] I truly believe that universities have stood up in a way that no other part of society ever has. We have not ducked. We have actually stood up. But of course, when you stand up and take ownership, the ugly state of reality comes to light.</p>
<p>The proposed committee to oversight at some level I think is not a bad idea. I want to have an expert committee to respond to and to demonstrate the work I am doing. I want to be held accountable, but I want to be held accountable by people who understand the area and can make sensible judgements of what I am doing - being adequate, outstanding or inadequate. </p>
<p>I want to be held accountable by a body, but I do not want that body disembodied from my own governance to command me what to do - because I am confident I am going to do a better job than it can. And so that is an important bit. I want to demonstrate to it that I am doing an outstanding job. I do not want to be dictated what to do because that will be a lowest common denominator.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213994/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In this podcast, ANU Vice Chancellor and astrophysicist Brian Schmidt joins The Conversation to discuss the challenges universities are facingMichelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2129442023-09-13T16:49:32Z2023-09-13T16:49:32ZA constitutional revolution is underway at the Supreme Court, as the conservative supermajority rewrites basic understandings of the roots of US law<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547245/original/file-20230908-19-u5ekav.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=24%2C0%2C5443%2C3639&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, written in 1787 on parchment paper.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/this-is-the-preamble-to-the-us-constitution-it-starts-with-news-photo/144085092?adppopup=true">Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a 2006 episode of the television show <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0402711/">“Boston Legal</a>,” conservative lawyer <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzmrZWe_9eg">Denny Crane</a> asserted that he had a constitutional right to carry a concealed firearm: “And the Supreme Court is going to say so, just as soon as they overturn Roe v. Wade.” </p>
<p>That was a joke, an unimaginable event, when the show aired 17 years ago. Then in 2022, the court announced <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/24/us/roe-wade-overturned-supreme-court.html">both</a> <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/06/in-6-3-ruling-court-strikes-down-new-yorks-concealed-carry-law/">changes</a>, shifting the butt of a joke to the law of the land in a brief span of years – and signaling the start of what is sometimes called a “constitutional revolution.” </p>
<p>Scholars describe a constitutional revolution as “<a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300231021/constitutional-revolution/">a historic constitutional course correction</a>,” or a “<a href="https://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3910&context=mlr">deep change in constitutional meaning</a>.” </p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.constitutionday.com/">Constitution Day</a> is celebrated this year on Sept. 17 – the anniversary of the signing of <a href="https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript">America’s basic law</a> in 1787 – I believe a shift of that magnitude is clearly occurring in the recent rulings of the Supreme Court.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547247/original/file-20230908-23-fzjq97.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Nine people in black robes seated together in an elegant, high-ceilinged room under a chandelier." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547247/original/file-20230908-23-fzjq97.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547247/original/file-20230908-23-fzjq97.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547247/original/file-20230908-23-fzjq97.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547247/original/file-20230908-23-fzjq97.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547247/original/file-20230908-23-fzjq97.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547247/original/file-20230908-23-fzjq97.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547247/original/file-20230908-23-fzjq97.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Justices of the Supreme Court pose for their official photo at the Supreme Court building in Washington, Oct. 7, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/justices-of-the-us-supreme-court-pose-for-their-official-news-photo/1243795208?adppopup=true">Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Revolutionary rulings</h2>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/a-seismic-change-has-taken-place-at-the-supreme-court-but-its-not-clear-if-the-shift-is-about-principle-or-party-190815">In the 2021-22 term</a>, the Supreme Court’s dramatic rulings focused on <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-revolutionary-ruling-and-not-just-for-abortion-a-supreme-court-scholar-explains-the-impact-of-dobbs-185823">abortion</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/supreme-court-sweeps-aside-new-yorks-limits-on-carrying-a-gun-raising-second-amendment-rights-to-new-heights-183486">guns</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-supreme-courts-football-decision-is-a-game-changer-on-school-prayer-184619">religion</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-supreme-court-has-curtailed-epas-power-to-regulate-carbon-pollution-and-sent-a-warning-to-other-regulators-185281">the power of federal agencies</a>. In a nutshell, the justices removed the recognition of a constitutional right to abortion, expanded gun rights and religious rights, and restricted the power of agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency to craft regulations.</p>
<p>In the recent 2022-2023 term, the court again addressed <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-business-can-decline-service-based-on-its-beliefs-supreme-court-rules-but-what-will-this-look-like-in-practice-207073">religion</a> and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/now-that-president-bidens-student-loan-cancellation-program-has-been-canceled-heres-whats-next-208551">power of the federal bureaucracy</a>, also adding <a href="https://theconversation.com/affirmative-action-lasted-over-50-years-3-essential-reads-explaining-how-it-ended-209273">race</a> as a major area of controversy in a decision that ended affirmative action in college admissions.</p>
<p>The core rulings on these disputes were all 6-3, with the <a href="https://theconversation.com/3-ways-a-6-3-supreme-court-would-be-different-146558">court’s new supermajority</a> of conservative justices on one side and the three remaining liberals in dissent.</p>
<p>Here are the three major cases from the past term expanding the constitutional revolution:</p>
<h2>Race: Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard College</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_l6gn.pdf">This case</a> challenged the constitutionality of affirmative action programs at American universities. Unlike previous affirmative action cases, which featured white applicants who claimed to have been discriminated against in favor of minority students, this lawsuit focused on another minority – Asians – who believed they were treated worse than other minorities and whites in the Harvard admissions process.</p>
<p>The heart of the controversy is about the meaning of the <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/amendments/amendment-xiv/clauses/702">equal protection clause</a> of the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/14th-amendment">Fourteenth Amendment</a>: “No State shall … deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”</p>
<p>The court ruled that the equal protection principle means public institutions may not take race into account, even when they are using racial preferences to the advantage of minority groups who suffered a history of oppression.</p>
<p>The Harvard case effectively overrules <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2002/02-241">a prior decision</a> in 2003 that allowed universities to use racial preferences in order to achieve a degree of diversity on campus.</p>
<p>The new constitutional rule is that the equal protection clause is a promise to treat all citizens of all races the same, rather than the alternative understanding of the clause’s promise to move society toward equity among racial groups, which allows or even encourages the differential treatment of some groups in order to make up for past injustices.</p>
<h2>Religion: 303 Creative v. Elenis</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-476_c185.pdf">This case</a> asked whether the First Amendment’s protections of religion and speech override the protections for LGBT citizens in state laws. Does a business owner who wants to provide only wedding websites for celebrations that comport with their religious convictions have to provide the same service for couples whose unions they do not endorse?</p>
<p>The court ruled that regardless of the religious component, it is a violation of free speech for the government to compel the expression of any messages inconsistent with one’s beliefs, even in the context of a business transaction.</p>
<p>While technically a ruling on speech, this is a controversy about religious citizens demanding exemptions from anti-discrimination laws. The ruling is part of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/christianity-at-the-supreme-court-from-majority-power-to-minority-rights-119718">long trend expanding religious liberty</a>.</p>
<p>The new rule in this case extended the previous term’s dramatic change in the constitutional law of religion in the praying coach case, <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/kennedy-v-bremerton-school-district-2/">Kennedy v. Bremerton</a>. In that case, the court ruled that the religion clauses at the beginning of the <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/">First Amendment</a> have a clear meaning: The government may not coerce any citizen when it comes to religion – either toward or away from religious beliefs. If any action of the government is pushing someone to abandon or embrace religious behavior, that is not allowable. </p>
<p>In the case of the praying coach, this meant a public school could not block his display of prayer at a sporting event, something that would have been seen as an unconstitutional entanglement of government with religion under previous courts. The new interpretation of the First Amendment explained in this line of rulings – giving the benefit of the doubt to religious believers whenever there is a judgment call – dramatically increases the protections for religious citizens.</p>
<h2>The administrative state: Biden v. Nebraska</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/22-506_nmip.pdf">The justices in this case</a> struck down President Joe Biden’s <a href="https://studentaid.gov/debt-relief-announcement">student loan forgiveness program</a>, which would have eliminated up to US$20,000 of debt for millions of Americans, with a total price tag of approximately $430 billion. The decision to bar the administration’s program was grounded in a new principle known as the “<a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12077">major questions doctrine</a>.”</p>
<p>This principle diminishes the power of many federal agencies. It first appeared in the court’s rulings during the pandemic, halting the Biden administration’s <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/21a23_ap6c.pdf">eviction moratorium</a> and <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/21a244_hgci.pdf">vaccine mandate</a>. The clearest statement of the doctrine came in 2022 in <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/west-virginia-v-environmental-protection-agency/">West Virginia v. EPA</a>, limiting the agency’s ability to introduce new regulations curbing greenhouse gas emissions and shifting energy production toward cleaner sources. </p>
<p>The doctrine asserts that an administrative agency – like the Department of Education, which initiated the loan forgiveness program – cannot decide what the court sees as a major political question, which includes doing something with a large price tag or making a dramatic change in policy, unless the agency has explicit authorization from Congress. </p>
<p>The justification for the new doctrine, expressed most clearly by <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/21a23_ap6c.pdf#page=40">Justice Neil Gorsuch</a>, is that only Congress wields the authority delegated by the voters, who can reward or punish those members of Congress in the next election. Federal agencies are not limited by the same control through elections, and are wielding the delegated authority of Congress rather than their own inherent power. The major question doctrine argues that if agencies are allowed to make major policy decisions, we do not have representative government as demanded by the Constitution.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547263/original/file-20230908-27-trso3u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A large granite building with a sign in front of it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547263/original/file-20230908-27-trso3u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547263/original/file-20230908-27-trso3u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547263/original/file-20230908-27-trso3u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547263/original/file-20230908-27-trso3u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547263/original/file-20230908-27-trso3u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547263/original/file-20230908-27-trso3u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547263/original/file-20230908-27-trso3u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Supreme Court has issued rulings in the past two years curbing the power of government agencies such as the EPA.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/TrumpFuelEconomy/2cc48b47e8604200bbe08d2653d69bcd/photo?Query=EPA%20headquarters%20building%20Clinton&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=638&currentItemNo=7&vs=true">AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Destination unknown</h2>
<p>This constitutional revolution could lead far beyond abortion, guns, race, religion or the administrative state. What is known on this Constitution Day is that the revolution will likely continue, expressed in Supreme Court opinions crafted by the new supermajority of conservative justices.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212944/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Morgan Marietta does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The changes wrought by the new conservative majority in the US Supreme Court are revolutionary.Morgan Marietta, Professor of Political Science, University of Texas at ArlingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2088072023-06-30T00:45:28Z2023-06-30T00:45:28ZA 2003 Supreme Court decision upholding affirmative action planted the seeds of its overturning, as justices then and now thought racism an easily solved problem<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534883/original/file-20230629-21-kbgai2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C8267%2C5366&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Supreme Court issued a decision on June 29, 2023, that ends affirmative action in college admissions.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-u-s-supreme-court-is-shown-at-dusk-on-june-28-2023-in-news-photo/1260960662?adppopup=true">Drew Angerer/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/29/politics/affirmative-action-supreme-court-ruling/index.html">an anticipated but nonetheless stunning decision</a> expected to have widespread implications on college campuses and workplaces across the country, the conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court on June 29, 2023, outlawed affirmative action programs that were designed to correct centuries of racist disenfranchisement in higher education. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23864004-students-for-fair-admissions-inc-v-president-and-fellows-of-harvard-college">the majority opinion</a> about the constitutionality of admissions programs at the University of North Carolina and Harvard, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that Harvard’s and UNC’s race-based admission guidelines “cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause.”</p>
<p>“College admissions are zero sum, and a benefit provided to some applicants but not to others necessarily advantages the former at the expense of the latter,” Roberts wrote. </p>
<p>Though not a surprise, <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23864004-students-for-fair-admissions-inc-v-president-and-fellows-of-harvard-college">the decision</a> in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/24/us/politics/supreme-court-affirmative-action-harvard-unc.html">Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard</a> and <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/students-for-fair-admissions-inc-v-university-of-north-carolina/">Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina</a> drew widespread <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/key-civil-rights-groups-blast-supreme-court-sharply-curtailing-affirma-rcna91829">condemnation from civil rights groups</a> and <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2023-06-29/republican-presidential-hopefuls-celebrate-supreme-court-ruling-on-affirmative-action">praise from conservative politicians</a>. </p>
<p>In my view as a <a href="https://lgst.wharton.upenn.edu/profile/shrop/">race and equity legal scholar focused on business</a>, the court had subtly established an affirmative action <a href="https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/can-critical-race-theory-save-pro-sports/">expiration date</a> in its 2003 <a href="https://casetext.com/case/grutter-v-bollinger-et-al">Grutter v. Bollinger</a> decision. </p>
<p>In that case, Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote in her majority opinion that “race-conscious admissions policies must be limited in time,” adding that the “Court expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today.” </p>
<p>In this opinion, the court moved that deadline to the forefront, and it is no longer the throwaway line that some believed at the time.</p>
<p>What the court’s decision in these 2023 cases means for college admissions officers is that the mere mention of using race to address racial and arguably gender disparities is unconstitutional. By their very nature, academia and corporations are conservative, and general counsels at these entities are likely to caution against any program targeting historically underrepresented people.</p>
<p>At the most optimistic, this ruling forces higher learning institutions to revise programs and look to remedy past wrongs on a case-by-case basis. </p>
<p>But its my belief that O'Connor’s deadline was one of desire and not reality. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/unequal-opportunity-race-and-education/">vestiges of past discrimination</a> and the unfortunate existence of ongoing discrimination continue. No deadline has made these wrongs and their impact disappear.</p>
<p><a href="https://thehill.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/Jackson-dissent.pdf">In her dissent</a> in the UNC case, Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson details the reality: </p>
<p>“With let-them-eat-cake obliviousness, the majority pulls the ripcord and announces ‘colorblindness for all’ by legal fiat. But deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life. And having so detached itself from this country’s actual past and present experiences, the Court has now been lured into interfering with the crucial work that UNC and other institutions of higher learning are doing to solve America’s real-world problems.”</p>
<h2>The court’s opposition grew slowly</h2>
<p>In their lawsuits against North Carolina and Harvard, the anti-affirmative action organization <a href="https://studentsforfairadmissions.org/">Students for Fair Admissions</a> argued that the schools’ race-conscious admissions process was unconstitutional and discriminated against high-achieving Asian American students in favor of traditionally underrepresented Blacks and Hispanics who may not have earned the same grades or standardized test scores as other applicants.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Five men and four women are wearing black robes as they pose for a portrait." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508673/original/file-20230207-29-owvlbb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508673/original/file-20230207-29-owvlbb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508673/original/file-20230207-29-owvlbb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508673/original/file-20230207-29-owvlbb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508673/original/file-20230207-29-owvlbb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508673/original/file-20230207-29-owvlbb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508673/original/file-20230207-29-owvlbb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Supreme Court, from left in front row: Sonia Sotomayor, Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John Roberts, Samuel Alito and Elena Kagan; and from left in back row: Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Ketanji Brown Jackson.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/united-states-supreme-court-associate-justice-sonia-news-photo/1431388794?phrase=us%20supreme%20clarence%20thomas&adppopup=true">Alex Wong/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The primary Supreme Court-level battle over affirmative action started during the 1970s when a legal challenge reached the Supreme Court in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/regents_of_the_university_of_california_v_bakke_(1978)#:%7E:text=Primary%20tabs-,Regents%20of%20the%20University%20of%20California%20v.,Civil%20Rights%20Act%20of%201964">Regents of the University of California v. Bakke</a>. </p>
<p>In that 1978 case, Allan Bakke, a white man, had been denied admission to University of California at Davis’ medical school. Though ruling that a separate admissions process for minority medical students was unconstitutional, Associate Justice Lewis Powell wrote that <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/10/how-lewis-powell-changed-affirmative-action/572938/">race can still be one of several factors</a> in the admissions process.</p>
<p>Since then, the Supreme Court has issued different rulings on whether race could be used in college admissions.</p>
<p>In the 2003 <a href="https://casetext.com/case/grutter-v-bollinger-et-al">Grutter v. Bollinger</a> case, O’Connor wrote the <a href="https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep539/usrep539306/usrep539306.pdf">majority opinion</a> that endorsed the University of Michigan’s “highly individualized, holistic review” that included race as a factor and had been legally challenged. </p>
<p>Most recently, in <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/15pdf/14-981_4g15.PDF">Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin</a> in 2016, the court reaffirmed its belief in schools that “train students to appreciate diverse viewpoints, to see one another as more than mere stereotypes, and to develop the capacity to live and work together as equal members of a common community.”</p>
<h2>A colorblind society?</h2>
<p>The ruling is not a complete loss for supporters of diversity efforts. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23864004-students-for-fair-admissions-inc-v-president-and-fellows-of-harvard-college">Roberts wrote</a> that prospective students should be evaluated “as an individual — not on the basis of race,” although universities can still consider “an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.” </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A Black man wearing a robe poses for a portrait." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508683/original/file-20230207-27-bavjpk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1138%2C97%2C2678%2C2443&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508683/original/file-20230207-27-bavjpk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508683/original/file-20230207-27-bavjpk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508683/original/file-20230207-27-bavjpk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508683/original/file-20230207-27-bavjpk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508683/original/file-20230207-27-bavjpk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508683/original/file-20230207-27-bavjpk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas opposes all race-conscious college admissions policies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/united-states-supreme-court-associate-justice-clarence-news-photo/1431382313?phrase=us%20supreme%20clarence%20thomas&adppopup=true">Alex Wong/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Applicants then are still able to explain their background in their essays submitted for college admissions. But even that is fraught with problems. </p>
<p>As novelist <a href="https://www.oprahdaily.com/life/g32842156/james-baldwin-quotes/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=arb_ga_opr_m_bm_prog_org_us_g32842156&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIo5CX_-Po_wIVbs_jBx243Aw3EAAYASAAEgJ8DvD_BwE">James Baldwin once asked</a>: How does one articulate the constant presence of race to someone who is not experiencing it? </p>
<p>For governmental entities, like public schools or those receiving substantial state funding, the ruling forces them to detail not only how using race will further compel government interests but also whether such a program is necessary to achieve that interest. </p>
<p>As Jackson explains <a href="https://thehill.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/Jackson-dissent.pdf">in her dissent</a>:</p>
<p>“The only way out of this morass – for all of us – is to stare at racial disparity unblinkingly, and then do what evidence and experts tell us is required to level the playing field. It is no small irony that the judgment the majority hands down today will forestall the end of race-based disparities in this country, making the colorblind world the majority wistfully touts much more difficult to accomplish.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208807/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kenneth L. Shropshire does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Supreme Court’s decision to eliminate affirmative action programs sent shock waves across the US and is expected to impact racial diversity throughout society.Kenneth L. Shropshire, Professor Emeritus of Legal Studies and Business Ethics; Faculty Director, Wharton Coalition for Equity & Opportunity, University of PennsylvaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1979862023-06-05T12:08:29Z2023-06-05T12:08:29ZSudan’s war is wrecking a lot, including its central bank – a legacy of trailblazing African American economist and banker Andrew Brimmer<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529893/original/file-20230602-21-j7j4xr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C267%2C1333%2C1656&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Andrew Brimmer gets sworn in as a member of the Federal Reserve Board. President Lyndon Johnson, right, Brimmer's wife and daughter look on.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Andrew_Brimmer_Swearing_In.jpg">Robert L. Knudsen via Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The war in Sudan between two rival generals for control of the country is devastating in so many ways. <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/05/civilians-bear-devastating-brunt-fighting-sudan-un-experts">Hundreds of civilians have been killed</a>, thousands injured and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/28/africa/sudan-displaced-people-gender-violence-intl-hnk/index.html">more than 1 million people are now homeless</a>. The fighting is even wreaking havoc on the country’s central bank.</p>
<p>In late April 2023, a video <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-africa-65444503">surfaced of a branch of the Central Bank of Sudan in Khartoum on fire</a>. And on May 31, Sudan’s <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-31/sudan-s-central-bank-is-latest-battleground-in-deadly-conflict#xj4y7vzkg">army bombed a central bank printing press</a> to keep opposition forces from printing the money it needs to fund its fight.</p>
<p>What many people may not know is that, in 1956, <a href="https://aacb.org/fr/book/export/html/406">three U.S. economists laid the groundwork for the Central Bank of Sudan</a>. And Andrew Brimmer, the first African American <a href="https://www.federalreservehistory.org/people/andrew-f-brimmer">to serve on the Board of Governors</a> of the U.S. Federal Reserve System, was one of them. </p>
<p>Brimmer’s resume was replete with high-level appointments and other professional accomplishments. After his death in 2012, he was lauded as having demonstrated a deep concern for “<a href="https://www.boston.com/news/national-news/2012/10/13/andrew-f-brimmer-86-sharecroppers-son-who-rose-to-sit-on-federal-reserve-board/">the economic conditions of poor, powerless, uneducated black people</a>.” That interest dated back to his own childhood in the Jim Crow South where he <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthefed/files/andrew-f-brimmer-interview-20070713.pdf">watched his father navigate</a> a system stacked against Black people and his early work helping found the Central Bank of Sudan.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529817/original/file-20230602-27-6eoyjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Three men in suits sit side by side at a conference table while four men, also wearing suits, stand behind them. A large map of the US hangs on a wall in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529817/original/file-20230602-27-6eoyjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529817/original/file-20230602-27-6eoyjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529817/original/file-20230602-27-6eoyjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529817/original/file-20230602-27-6eoyjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529817/original/file-20230602-27-6eoyjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529817/original/file-20230602-27-6eoyjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529817/original/file-20230602-27-6eoyjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Members of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, including Andrew Brimmer, standing, second from right, pose for a group photo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/members-of-the-board-of-governors-of-the-federal-reserve-news-photo/516482880?adppopup=true">Bettmann via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>As an <a href="https://history.washington.edu/people/christopher-tounsel">African American historian of Sudan</a>, I have been drawn to the ways that Black Americans have participated in the development of modern Sudan. I’m particularly fascinated by the way Brimmer, a graduate of the University of Washington, where I teach, figures into this history. </p>
<p>My forthcoming book examines African American involvement in Sudan and their impact on this transnational relationship.</p>
<h2>Brimmer’s road to economics</h2>
<p>Brimmer was one of six children – three girls and three boys. His father alternated between manual jobs, from chopping cotton to shipping out grain to support the family, and his mother grew much of the food the family ate.</p>
<p>“So we were typically poor, but not dirt-poor,” <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthefed/files/andrew-f-brimmer-interview-20070713.pdf">Brimmer told interviewers for a Federal Reserve Board oral history project</a> in 2007. </p>
<p>He was born in 1926 in Newellton, Louisiana, just five miles from the plantation where some of his ancestors had been enslaved. And he was educated in a segregated school system that had a shorter school year for Black children than white children and only went to the seventh grade. Brimmer had to leave town for additional education.</p>
<p>He was <a href="https://www.federalreservehistory.org/people/andrew-f-brimmer">drafted into the Army</a> near the end of World War II and was honorably discharged in 1946. Brimmer then earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in economics in 1950 and 1951 from the University of Washington and in 1957 <a href="https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/andrew-f-brimmer-39">earned a Ph.D. in economics</a> from Harvard. </p>
<h2>Mr. Brimmer Goes to Sudan</h2>
<p>When Sudan became independent of British colonial rule in 1956, it <a href="https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-sudan/">established diplomatic relations with the United States</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1813-6982.1960.tb01848.x">requested U.S. help in setting up a central bank</a>.</p>
<p>That July, <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthefed/files/andrew-f-brimmer-interview-20070713.pdf">officials at the U.S. State Department asked Brimmer</a>, who had been <a href="https://www.federalreservehistory.org/people/andrew-f-brimmer">working as an economist</a> with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York since June 1955, and two senior-level Federal Reserve members to participate in a <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1813-6982.1960.tb01848.x">technical mission to Sudan</a> to help with that request.</p>
<p>Brimmer and his colleagues – <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1813-6982.1960.tb01848.x">Oliver Wheeler</a>, vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and head of the mission, and <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1813-6982.1960.tb01848.x">Alan Holmes</a>, a senior economist and economic adviser at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York – <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthefed/files/andrew-f-brimmer-interview-20070713.pdf">arrived in Sudan in December 1956</a> and stayed until the following March.</p>
<p>Charged with <a href="https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/11/top_containers/74088?&filter_fields%5b%5d=child_container_u_sstr&filter_values%5b%5d=folder+6">developing a blueprint for a central bank</a>, the team <a href="https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/11/top_containers/74088?&filter_fields%5b%5d=child_container_u_sstr&filter_values%5b%5d=folder+2">interviewed commercial bankers, government officials</a>, business owners and community members before drafting a <a href="https://definitions.uslegal.com/b/bank-charter/">central bank charter</a>. The document laid out the bank’s rights and authorized its operation. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1813-6982.1960.tb01848.x">The government of Sudan established the central bank</a> in July 1959 based on their work.</p>
<h2>A familiar face in an unfamiliar land</h2>
<p>Brimmer’s <a href="https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/11/resources/7306">diary from the trip</a> — housed at Harvard University — offers a glimpse into some of his other experiences. He attended festivities marking Sudan’s first anniversary of independence and attended the first match of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/sports/African-Cup-of-Nations">the inaugural African Cup of Nations</a> soccer tournament.</p>
<p>He <a href="https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/11/top_containers/74090?&filter_fields%5b%5d=child_container_u_sstr&filter_values%5b%5d=folder+7">took pictures of the University of Khartoum</a> and sites along the Blue Nile, and also attended a flower show by the Horticultural Society of the Sudan.</p>
<p>Perhaps his diary’s most interesting moments concern his recollection of how Sudanese perceived him. One woman, Brimmer wrote, “wanted to know why I could not speak Arabic!” She was apparently in disbelief that he was not Sudanese. “When I told her how I got to be in the U.S. and that she and I may be cousins, she laughed.” </p>
<h2>A path to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors</h2>
<p>Back in the U.S., Brimmer went on to work in the administrations of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. And in a historic move, <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2012/10/12/162797020/remembering-andrew-brimmer-first-black-on-federal-reserves-board">Johnson nominated him to the Federal Reserve Bank’s Board of Governors</a> on Feb. 26, 1966. That <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthefed/structure-federal-reserve-board.htm#:%7E:text=The%20Board%20of%20Governors%20guides,Reserve%20that%20sets%20monetary%20policy">body oversees the 12 Reserve banks</a> in the system and works to promote a fair consumer financial services market. </p>
<p>After his Senate confirmation, Brimmer joined the board on March 9, 1966, <a href="https://www.federalreservehistory.org/people/andrew-f-brimmer">becoming the first Black member</a> in its history. There, he earned a reputation as the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1973/01/07/archives/feds-man-of-fervor-brimmers-comments-on-blacks-stir-waves.html">resident expert on international monetary policy</a>.</p>
<p>He was also considered an authority on Black economic issues who <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/brimmer-andrew-f-1926/">often advocated</a> for affirmative action, <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/brimmer-andrew-f-1926/">co-chaired</a> the Interracial Council for Business Opportunity and <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/brimmer-andrew-f-1926/">argued that racial discrimination </a> hurt the U.S. economy by effectively sidelining potentially productive workers. He also maintained that racial discrimination in education was responsible for Black people earning lower incomes than white people.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529820/original/file-20230602-19-u5tyfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A seated man wearing a suit and glasses is photographed as he speaks." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529820/original/file-20230602-19-u5tyfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529820/original/file-20230602-19-u5tyfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529820/original/file-20230602-19-u5tyfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529820/original/file-20230602-19-u5tyfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529820/original/file-20230602-19-u5tyfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529820/original/file-20230602-19-u5tyfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529820/original/file-20230602-19-u5tyfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Andrew F. Brimmer speaks before the Senate Subcommittee on Financial Institutions of the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs in 1971.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/washington-dc-andrew-f-brimmer-member-of-the-board-of-news-photo/515982070?adppopup=true">Bettmann via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>From his various wage analyses in the early 1970s, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1973/01/07/archives/feds-man-of-fervor-brimmers-comments-on-blacks-stir-waves.html">Brimmer determined that the median income for Black families</a> was just over 60% of the median white family income. </p>
<p>“I do feel that the economic plight of blacks is a serious matter,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1973/01/07/archives/feds-man-of-fervor-brimmers-comments-on-blacks-stir-waves.html">Brimmer said to The New York Times in 1973</a>. “So I bring the same economist’s tool kit to that subject as other economists bring to examine other national economic problems.”</p>
<p>Brimmer resigned from the Fed in 1974 <a href="https://www.hbs.edu/news/releases/Pages/baker-library-adds-andrew-brimmer-papers.aspx">to teach at Harvard</a>.</p>
<p>He went on to found his own consulting firm, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/publisher/asalh">led the Association for the Study of Afro American Life and History</a>, which preserves and promotes information about African American culture, history and life, and served on Tuskegee University’s board of directors from 1965 to 2010.</p>
<p>When he died in 2012, The Washington Post noted that Brimmer used his position to warn about the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/andrew-f-brimmer-fed-governor-and-head-of-dc-control-board-dies-at-86/2012/10/10/50928a26-12f8-11e2-a16b-2c110031514a_story.html">economic dangers of racial discrimination</a> and to call for broader educational opportunities in urban areas. That was unlike other members of the Federal Reserve Board.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197986/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Tounsel has previously received research funding from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Social Science Research Council, Council of Overseas American Research Centers, and Doris G. Quinn Foundation.</span></em></p>Andrew Brimmer, the first African American on the Board of Governors of the US Federal Reserve, helped develop the blueprint for the Central Bank of Sudan.Christopher Tounsel, Associate Professor of History, University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2018212023-04-04T12:17:39Z2023-04-04T12:17:39Z6 of 8 Ivy Leagues will soon have women as presidents — an expert explains why this matters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517460/original/file-20230324-22-yd0cl3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Claudine Gay will become Harvard's second female president and first Black president in July 2023. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/claudine-gay-speaks-to-the-crowd-after-being-named-harvard-news-photo/1245637528">Erin Clark/The Boston Globe via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>For the first time, a majority of Ivy League schools will soon be led by women.</em></p>
<p><em>Starting July 1, 2023, <a href="https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/12/harvard-names-claudine-gay-30th-president/">Claudine Gay</a> will assume the role of president at Harvard University, <a href="https://www.columbia.edu/content/minouche-shafik">Nemat “Minouche” Shafik</a> at Columbia University and <a href="https://vermontbiz.com/news/2022/july/21/dartmouth-names-sian-leah-beilock-19th-president">Sian Leah Beilock</a> at Dartmouth College. They will join current female presidents at Brown University, Cornell University and University of Pennsylvania.</em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=shBbxjMAAAAJ&hl=en">Felecia Commodore</a>, an associate professor of higher education at Old Dominion University, explains what this means for gender equity in the college presidency – and why U.S. colleges and universities still have a long way to go.</em></p>
<h2>Why does this matter?</h2>
<p>While women make up about <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/college-university-fall-higher-education-men-women-enrollment-admissions-back-to-school-11630948233">60% of undergraduate</a> as well as <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/chb">master’s and doctoral students</a> in the U.S., only about <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/01/26/study-women-led-colleges-hire-more-women-and-pay-them-better">32% of presidents</a> of American colleges and universities are women.</p>
<p>However, the Ivy League is not new to selecting female presidents – they have been doing so for a few decades. Judith Rodin was the first, in 1994, when she became president of the University of Pennsylvania. She was followed by <a href="https://vivo.brown.edu/display/rsimmons">Ruth Simmons at Brown University</a> and <a href="https://www.brown.edu/campus-life/events/cracking-the-glass-ceiling/tilghman">Shirley Tilghman at Princeton University</a>, both in 2001. Rodin was succeeded by another woman, <a href="https://www.asc.upenn.edu/people/faculty/amy-gutmann-phd">Amy Guttman</a>, in 2004. </p>
<p>Still, one reason this moment may be one to watch is that Ivy League institutions are often seen as exemplars of elite, complex institutions. So seeing what one could consider a critical mass of female leaders in the Ivy League could signal the benefit of women in leadership to other boards that are hesitant or slow to hire women as presidents.</p>
<h2>How unusual is this across higher ed?</h2>
<p>I think it would be more surprising to see mostly female presidents at the majority of large public research universities, or at a majority of the schools in the <a href="https://www.si.com/college/2022/07/14/power-5-desirability-rankings-sec-big-ten-acc">Power 5 athletic conferences</a>. </p>
<p>Despite what may seem like a boom in women leading institutions, the percentage of women in the presidency at colleges and universities more broadly has plateaued at <a href="https://www.higheredtoday.org/2023/03/06/an-unrecognized-bias-contributing-to-the-gender-gap-in-the-college-presidency/">between 25% and 30%</a> for the past decade. This was after increasing from <a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED446708">9.5% in 1986</a> to <a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED446708">19% in 1998</a>.</p>
<p>A number of factors contribute to this low percentage, including <a href="https://www.aauw.org/resources/research/barrier-bias/">barriers within the college presidential pipeline</a> – such as exclusion from networks that provide mentorship – reward and <a href="https://www.higheredtoday.org/2017/10/23/pipelines-pathways-institutional-leadership-update-status-women-higher-education/">promotion structures</a> that are not equitable across genders, and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2016.02.005">bias against women</a> <a href="https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/bitstream/handle/10919/89210/VoicesWomenHigEduc.pdf?sequence=1">in academic leadership roles</a>.</p>
<p>A recent analysis of <a href="https://www.higheredtoday.org/2023/03/06/an-unrecognized-bias-contributing-to-the-gender-gap-in-the-college-presidency/">data on college presidents</a> explains how this bias against women occurs, specifically when it comes to academic leadership roles. This is important because college presidents typically <a href="https://www.acenet.edu/Research-Insights/Pages/American-College-President-Study.aspx">find their way to the presidency</a> through <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003219897-3/pathways-presidency-hanna-rodriguez-farrar-laura-jack">academic leadership roles</a> such as deans, vice provosts and provosts. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett and former UPenn President Judith Rodin talk on a stage" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518500/original/file-20230330-26-bwdl3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518500/original/file-20230330-26-bwdl3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518500/original/file-20230330-26-bwdl3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518500/original/file-20230330-26-bwdl3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518500/original/file-20230330-26-bwdl3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518500/original/file-20230330-26-bwdl3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518500/original/file-20230330-26-bwdl3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Judith Rodin, right, former president of University of Pennsylvania, and Valerie Jarrett, former senior adviser in the Obama administration, discuss gender parity in the C-suite in 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/senior-advisor-and-assistant-to-the-president-white-house-news-photo/609203494">Riccardo Savi/Getty Images for Concordia Summit</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What are the biggest challenges that college presidents face?</h2>
<p>The biggest priority or challenge really depends on the individual college or university. However, all institutions must ensure they are financially healthy and identify opportunities to strengthen their financial resources. College presidents have reported that they spend the most time on <a href="https://www.aceacps.org/duties-responsibilities/">budget and financial management</a>, followed by fundraising.</p>
<p>Particularly in the current <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-gamma/tyranny-market">higher education marketplace</a>, where the average cost of college runs <a href="https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college">over US$35,000 per year</a>, college leaders must work to keep their institutions fiscally strong and also competitive and affordable. This may involve, for example, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2016.11777412">building new infrastructure</a>, creating new programs and cultivating new sources of funding. </p>
<h2>What effect does having a woman in the top seat have?</h2>
<p>For colleges that have only ever had a man in the president’s role, hiring their first woman as president can signal that the institution embraces change and evolution. This can be an especially important message to send to funders, alumni donors, philanthropists, state legislators and corporate partners, who all play a role in ensuring a particular college’s financial vitality.</p>
<p>Female presidents add to the diversity of the college presidency. They <a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1091521">add different perspectives</a> to conversations that shape practices and policies both within their college and across higher education. They might, for example, provide their particular perspective regarding compensation for female faculty members of color, who tend to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2011.606208">engage in more unpaid service work</a> on campuses. </p>
<p>Organizational scholars and business leaders affirm that <a href="http://www.doi.org/10.1007/s10551-015-2613-5">diversity strengthens the decisions</a> made by organizations and <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1002/job.724">contributes to innovative solutions</a>. A more diverse group of decision-makers can generate <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1002/job.724">more decision alternatives</a> than a homogeneous group that may be susceptible to group think.</p>
<p>And lastly, having women at the helm of academic institutions <a href="http://www.doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2017.2437">shows other women who aspire to become college presidents</a> that it is indeed possible.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201821/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Felecia Commodore does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Despite what’s happening on the most prestigious campuses, fewer than a third of presidents at American colleges and universities are women.Felecia Commodore, Assistant Professor of Higher Education, Old Dominion UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1992322023-02-07T13:30:39Z2023-02-07T13:30:39ZW.E.B. Du Bois, Black History Month and the importance of African American studies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508198/original/file-20230205-15-zit4rm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C124%2C4094%2C3225&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Scholar-activist W.E.B. DuBois in 1946.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/william-e-b-dubois-sociologist-scholar-and-cofounder-of-the-news-photo/159788642">Underwood Archives/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The opening days of Black History Month 2023 have coincided with controversy about the teaching and broader meaning of African American studies. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/02/01/1153434464/college-boards-revised-ap-african-american-studies-course-draws-new-criticism">On Feb. 1, 2023</a>, the College Board released a revised curriculum for its newly developed Advanced Placement African American studies course.</p>
<p>Critics have accused the College Board of caving to political pressure stemming from conservative backlash and the decision of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/01/22/1150259944/florida-rejects-ap-class-african-american-studies">ban the course</a> from public high schools in Florida because of what he characterized as its radical content and inclusion of topics such as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/what-is-critical-race-theory.html">critical race theory</a>, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/06/17/879041052/william-darity-jr-discusses-reparations-racial-equality-in-his-new-book">reparations</a> and the <a href="https://blacklivesmatter.com/">Black Lives Matter</a> movement. </p>
<p>On Feb. 11, 1951, an article by the 82-year-old Black scholar-activist W.E.B. Du Bois titled “<a href="https://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b210-i014">Negro History Week</a>” appeared in the short-lived New York newspaper The Daily Compass. </p>
<p>As one of the founders of the NAACP in 1909 and the editor of its powerful magazine <a href="https://naacp.org/find-resources/history-explained/history-crisis">The Crisis</a>, Du Bois is considered by historians and intellectuals from many academic disciplines as America’s <a href="https://www.loa.org/news-and-views/815-turning-high-fashion-into-politics-henry-louis-gates-jr-on-web-du-bois-and-the-new-negro-movement-of-1900">preeminent thinker on race</a>. His thoughts and opinions still carry weight throughout the world. </p>
<p>Du Bois’ words in that 1951 article are especially prescient today, offering a reminder about the importance of Black History Month and what is at stake in current conversations about African American studies. </p>
<p>Du Bois began his Daily Compass commentary by praising <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Fugitive_Pedagogy/dnUZEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=carter+g+woodson&printsec=frontcover">Carter G. Woodson</a>, founder of the <a href="https://asalh.org/">Association for the Study of Negro Life and History</a>, who established Negro History Week in 1926. The week would eventually become Black History Month.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="An elderly black man dressed in a dark business suit poses for a portrait." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508201/original/file-20230205-23-27sr65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508201/original/file-20230205-23-27sr65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508201/original/file-20230205-23-27sr65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508201/original/file-20230205-23-27sr65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508201/original/file-20230205-23-27sr65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508201/original/file-20230205-23-27sr65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508201/original/file-20230205-23-27sr65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Black historian Carter G. Woodson in 1946.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2016/02/lcm-trending-african-american-history-month/carterwoodson/">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Du Bois described the annual commemoration as Woodson’s “crowning achievement.” </p>
<p>Woodson was <a href="https://www.nps.gov/cawo/learn/carter-g-woodson-biography.htm">the second African American</a> to earn a doctorate in history from Harvard University. <a href="https://guides.library.harvard.edu/hua/dubois">Du Bois was the first</a>.</p>
<p>Du Bois and Woodson did not always see eye to eye. However, as <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/facultyguide/person.html?emplid=7f443ffde35747ba69faca210faff07145fab78c">I explore</a> in my new book, “<a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374293154/the-wounded-world">The Wounded World: W.E.B. Du Bois and the First World War</a>,” the two pioneering scholars always respected each other.</p>
<h2>Reckoning with history and reclaiming the past</h2>
<p>Du Bois’ connection to and appreciation of Negro History Week grew during the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s. <a href="https://www.aaihs.org/w-e-b-du-bois-and-black-history-month/">During this time</a>, whether in public speeches or published articles, he never missed an opportunity to acknowledge the importance of Negro History Week. </p>
<p>In the Feb. 11, 1951, article, Du Bois reflected that his own contributions to Negro History Week “lay in my long effort as a historian and sociologist to make America and Negroes themselves aware of the significant facts of Negro history.” </p>
<p>Summarizing his work from his first book, “<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Suppression_of_the_African_Slave_tra/04mJJlND1ccC?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover">The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade</a>,” published in 1896, through his magnum opus “<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Black_Reconstruction_in_America_1860_188/Nt5mglDCNHEC?hl=en">Black Reconstruction in America</a>,” published in 1935, Du Bois told readers of the Daily Compass piece that much of his career was spent trying “to correct the distortion of history in regard to Negro enfranchisement.”</p>
<p>By doing so, the nation would hopefully become, Du Bois wrote further, “conscious that this part of our citizenry were normal human beings who had served the nation credibly and were still being deprived of their credit by ignorant and prejudiced historians.”</p>
<p>In addition to championing Negro History Week, Du Bois applauded other Black scholars, like <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/E-Franklin-Frazier">E. Franklin Frazier</a>, <a href="https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2015/02/11/black-history-month-charles-s-johnson-scholar-race-relations/23256961/">Charles Johnson</a> and <a href="https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/schlesinger-library/collections/shirley-graham-du-bois">Shirley Graham</a>, who were “steadily attacking” the omissions and distortions of Black people in school textbooks. </p>
<p>Du Bois went on to chronicle the achievements of African Americans in science, religion, art, literature and the military, making clear that Black people had a history to be proud of.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of black men, women and children are marching on a street." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508199/original/file-20230205-504-ix6lu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508199/original/file-20230205-504-ix6lu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508199/original/file-20230205-504-ix6lu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508199/original/file-20230205-504-ix6lu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508199/original/file-20230205-504-ix6lu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508199/original/file-20230205-504-ix6lu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508199/original/file-20230205-504-ix6lu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">W.E.B. Du Bois, third from right in the second row, joins other marchers in New York protesting against racism on July 28, 1917.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/prominent-african-americans-residents-of-the-city-paraded-news-photo/530843082?phrase=web%20du%20bois&adppopup=true">George Rinhart/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Du Bois, however, questioned what deeper meaning these achievements held to the issues facing Black people in the present.</p>
<p>“What now does Negro History Week stand for?” he asked in the 1951 article. “Shall American Negroes continue to learn to be ‘proud’ of themselves, or is there a higher broader aim for their research and study?”</p>
<p>“In other words,” he asserted, “as it becomes more universally known what Negroes contributed to America in the past, more must logically be said and taught concerning the future.”</p>
<p>The time had come, Du Bois believed, for African Americans to stop striving to be merely “the equal of white Americans.”</p>
<p>Black people needed to cease emulating the worst traits of America – flamboyance, individualism, greed and financial success at any cost – and support <a href="https://naacp.org/find-resources/history-explained/civil-rights-leaders/web-du-bois">labor unions</a>, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3041154">Pan-Africanism</a> and <a href="https://hutchinscenter.fas.harvard.edu/web-dubois">anti-colonial struggle</a>. </p>
<p>He especially encouraged the systematic study of the imperial and economic roots of racism: “Here is a field for Negro History Week.”</p>
<h2>Black history and Black struggle</h2>
<p>Looking ahead, Du Bois declared that if Negro History Week remained “true to the ideals of Carter Woodson” and followed “the logical development of the Negro Race in America,” it would not confine itself to the study of the past nor “boasting and vainglory over what we have accomplished.” </p>
<p>“It will not mistake wealth as the measure of America, nor big-business and noise as World Domination,” Du Bois wrote in his article.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337712/original/file-20200526-106815-f764c8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Under a large headline that reads The Shame of America, a newspaper advertisement lists a number of lynchings." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337712/original/file-20200526-106815-f764c8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337712/original/file-20200526-106815-f764c8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337712/original/file-20200526-106815-f764c8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337712/original/file-20200526-106815-f764c8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337712/original/file-20200526-106815-f764c8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1010&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337712/original/file-20200526-106815-f764c8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1010&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337712/original/file-20200526-106815-f764c8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1010&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In 1922, the NAACP ran a series of full-page ads in The New York Times calling attention to lynchings.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6786">New York Times, Nov. 23, 1922/American Social History Project</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Instead, Du Bois believed Negro History Week would “concentrate on study of the present,” “not be afraid of radical literature” and, above all else, advocate for peace and voice “eternal opposition against war between the white and colored peoples of the earth.” </p>
<p>Were he alive today, Du Bois would certainly have much to say about current debates around the teaching of African American history and the larger significance of African American studies. <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/00/11/05/specials/dubois-obit.html">Du Bois died</a> on Aug. 27, 1963, in Accra, Ghana. </p>
<p>But he left behind his clairvoyant words that remind us of the connections between African American studies and movements for Black liberation, along with how the teaching of African American history has always challenged racist and exclusionary narratives of the nation’s past. </p>
<p>Du Bois also reminds us that Black History Month is rooted in a legacy of activism and resistance, one that continues in the present.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199232/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chad Williams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As the 20th century’s preeminent scholar-activist on race, W.E.B. Du Bois would not be surprised by modern-day attempts at whitewashing American history. He saw them in 1930s and 1940s.Chad Williams, Samuel J. and Augusta Spector Professor of History and African and African American Studies, Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1903132022-11-01T12:48:27Z2022-11-01T12:48:27ZConservative US Supreme Court reconsidering affirmative action, leaving the use of race in college admissions on the brink of extinction<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492555/original/file-20221031-27-pmpisx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=185%2C353%2C3808%2C2395&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The U.S. Supreme Court in its official portrait on Oct. 7, 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/justices-of-the-us-supreme-court-pose-for-their-official-news-photo/1243795466?phrase=us%20supreme%20court%20justices&adppopup=true">Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The U.S. military learned a valuable lesson about race during the Vietnam War: Diversity does not happen without affirmative action.</p>
<p>That helps explain why a <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/3699673-military-leaders-affirmative-action-is-a-national-security-imperative/">distinguished group of 35 military officials</a> wrote <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-1199/232531/20220801183329801_20-1199%20and%2021-707_Brief%20of%20Amici%20Curiae%20Former%20Military%20Leaders.pdf">a brief to the Supreme Court</a> supporting the use of race as a part of college admissions – as the U.S. military has done at its four service academies over the last nearly 50 years.</p>
<p>While the <a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/harvard-race-admissions-case-tests-oconnors-25-year-prediction">Supreme Court has agreed in the past</a> that racial diversity on college campuses is an important goal, the problem is just how to achieve that goal without using race as a factor.</p>
<p>In two cases that are expected to determine the fate of affirmative action programs across the country, the court <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/21-707.html">heard oral arguments on Oct. 31, 2022,</a> that could bring an end to using race as one of many factors in college admissions decisions.</p>
<p>Questions from the justices reflected the ideological divisions on the court. Conservative justices argued that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/31/supreme-court-race-college-admissions-harvard-unc/">race-based admissions policies had no defined end point</a>. </p>
<p>“I don’t see how you can say that the program will ever end,” Chief Justice John Roberts said. </p>
<p>Associate Justice Clarence Thomas cut right to the point in his questions. </p>
<p>“I may be tone-deaf when it comes to all these other things that happen on campus, about feeling good and all that,” <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/31/politics/takeaways-supreme-court-harvard-north-carolina-affirmative-action">Thomas said to one of the attorneys defending affirmative action</a>. “I’m really interested in a simple thing: What benefits academically are there to your definition or the diversity that you’re asserting.”</p>
<p>In sharp contrast, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor reminded the court that diversity was deemed an issue of national importance in previous rulings and that without such programs, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/supreme-court-affirmative-action-oral-arguments/index.html">the number of historically disadvantaged applicants decreases substantially</a>. </p>
<p>“What we know,” Sotomayor said about the nine states who have tried dropping affirmative action programs, “in each of them, white admissions have either remained the same or increased. And clearly, in some institutions, the numbers for underrepresented groups has fallen dramatically, correct?” </p>
<h2>The US military experience</h2>
<p>In my view as a scholar of the history of affirmative action, the military officers make the <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/diversity-wins-how-inclusion-matters">case that diversity</a> is a matter of life and death.</p>
<p>The officers <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-1199/232531/20220801183329801_20-1199%20and%2021-707_Brief%20of%20Amici%20Curiae%20Former%20Military%20Leaders.pdf">argued in their brief</a> that barring universities from taking race into account in admissions risks sowing “internal resentment, discord, and violence” in an era when “diversity is imperative to our military’s dealings with international allies and complex global challenges.”</p>
<p>In addition, the military leaders argued that overturning affirmative action would damage the extremely successful talent pipeline that the officer corps has set up directly through military academies and indirectly through the university-based ROTC programs.</p>
<p>This is not the first time former military officials have weighed in on affirmative action. They <a href="https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3167&context=penn_law_review">did so</a> in the 2003 case against the affirmative action program at the University of Michigan in <a href="https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/supremecourt/future/landmark_grutter.html">Grutter vs. Bollinger</a>.</p>
<p>“The importance of maintaining a diverse, highly qualified officer corps has been beyond legitimate dispute for decades,” the military officials wrote. </p>
<p>Indeed, in 1962, when U.S. involvement was starting to grow in Vietnam, Black commissioned officers represented only 1.6% of the officers corps. Military academies remained virtually segregated, with Black people making up less than 1% of enrollees. As a result, the number of Black officers didn’t grow much.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A wounded white solider is carried by a black soldier during the Vietnam War." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492564/original/file-20221031-7911-wj31l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492564/original/file-20221031-7911-wj31l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492564/original/file-20221031-7911-wj31l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492564/original/file-20221031-7911-wj31l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492564/original/file-20221031-7911-wj31l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492564/original/file-20221031-7911-wj31l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492564/original/file-20221031-7911-wj31l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A wounded soldier is carried by members of the 1st Calvary Division near the Cambodian border during the Vietnam War.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/wounded-soldier-is-carried-by-members-of-the-1st-calvary-news-photo/514870008?phrase=vietnam%20war%20black%20soldiers&adppopup=true">Bettmann/GettyImages</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Over the next five years, the <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Blacks_and_the_Military_in_American_Hist.html?id=5JJ2AAAAMAAJ">number of Black soldiers fighting and dying</a> on the front lines grew to about 25%. Racial tensions between white and Black soldiers <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-1199/232531/20220801183329801_20-1199%20and%2021-707_Brief%20of%20Amici%20Curiae%20Former%20Military%20Leaders.pdf">led to at least 300 fights</a> in a two-year-period that resulted in 71 deaths.</p>
<p>Fueling those fights was the belief among Black soldiers that the largely white officers didn’t care about their lives. </p>
<p>The lack of diversity, the military leaders wrote in their brief, “led to a complete breakdown in understanding between minority enlisted service members and the white officers who led them.” </p>
<p>In what they described as “a painful chapter,” military officials said the Vietnam War “brought home the importance of cultivating diversity across all levels of leadership.”</p>
<p>It also began the military’s use of affirmative action, including race-conscious admissions policies at service academies and in ROTC programs.</p>
<h2>Conservative target for decades</h2>
<p>In their lawsuits now in the Supreme Court against <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/students-for-fair-admissions-inc-v-president-fellows-of-harvard-college/">Harvard</a> and the <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/students-for-fair-admissions-inc-v-university-of-north-carolina/">University of North Carolina</a>, the anti-affirmative action organization <a href="https://studentsforfairadmissions.org/">Students for Fair Admissions</a> argued that the schools’ race-conscious admissions process was unconstitutional and discriminated against high-achieving Asian American students in favor of traditionally underrepresented Blacks and Hispanics.</p>
<p>These cases mark the second time the Students for Fair Admissions and its founder, Edward Blum, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/30/politics/scotus-affirmative-action-college-admissions-edward-blum/index.html">a conservative activist</a> who has raised millions of dollars from right-wing donors, have reached the Supreme Court in their efforts to dismantle affirmative action.</p>
<p>In 2016, they challenged the University of Texas on behalf of white and Asian students, but lost. That didn’t stop Blum from filing the latest challenges before the Supreme Court – all in the effort to eliminate the use of race in college admissions. </p>
<p>In an October 2022 interview, Blum said <a href="https://time.com/6225372/edward-blum-affirmative-action-supreme-court-interview/">he believes that diversity on campus is a good thing</a>, but “there is a way to go about doing this without putting a thumb on the scale.”</p>
<p>Given the conservative 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/06/24/1102305878/supreme-court-abortion-roe-v-wade-decision-overturn">its controversial ruling</a> that overturned the landmark <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/410/113/">1973 abortion decision in Roe v. Wade</a>, it does not appear likely that affirmative action as it’s known will survive, despite decades of rulings that protected the use of race as an admissions criteria.</p>
<p>In 2007, for instance, Chief Justice Roberts wrote <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/04/23/306173835/two-justices-debate-the-doctrine-of-colorblindness">in a school busing case</a> that “the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”</p>
<p>Forms of that argument have been around since the 1970s, when a legal challenge reached the Supreme Court in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/regents_of_the_university_of_california_v_bakke_(1978)#:%7E:text=Primary%20tabs-,Regents%20of%20the%20University%20of%20California%20v.,Civil%20Rights%20Act%20of%201964">Regents of the University of California v. Bakke</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A white man wearing a black robe is seen graduating from medical school." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492560/original/file-20221031-24-5dk3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492560/original/file-20221031-24-5dk3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=641&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492560/original/file-20221031-24-5dk3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=641&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492560/original/file-20221031-24-5dk3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=641&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492560/original/file-20221031-24-5dk3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492560/original/file-20221031-24-5dk3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492560/original/file-20221031-24-5dk3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Allan Bakke, 42, receives his medical diploma in 1982 after successfully challenging affirmative action admissions policies to the Supreme Court.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/allan-bakke-enters-freeborn-hall-to-receive-his-medical-news-photo/1096096308?phrase=allan%20bakke&adppopup=true">Bettmann Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In that 1978 case, Allan Bakke, a white man, had been denied admission to University of California at Davis’ medical school. Though ruling that a separate admissions process for minority medical students was unconstitutional, Associate Justice Lewis Powell wrote that <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/10/how-lewis-powell-changed-affirmative-action/572938/">race can still be one of several factors</a> in the admissions process.</p>
<p>Since then, the Supreme Court has issued different rulings on whether race could be used in college admissions.</p>
<p>In the 2003 <a href="https://casetext.com/case/grutter-v-bollinger-et-al">Grutter v. Bollinger</a> case, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote the <a href="https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep539/usrep539306/usrep539306.pdf">majority opinion</a> that endorsed the University of Michigan’s “highly individualized, holistic review” that included race as a factor and had been legally challenged. </p>
<p>Most recently, in <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/15pdf/14-981_4g15.PDF">Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin</a> in 2016, the court reaffirmed its belief in schools that “train students to appreciate diverse viewpoints, to see one another as more than mere stereotypes, and to develop the capacity to live and work together as equal members of a common community.”</p>
<h2>If not race, then what?</h2>
<p>Race-neutral admissions policies have had mixed results.</p>
<p>In the cases before the Supreme Court, the University of California <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-1199/232355/20220801134931730_20-1199%20bsac%20University%20of%20California.pdf">also filed a brief urging the Court to allow the use of race</a>. The school argued that the elimination of its affirmative action program in 1996 has caused its diversity numbers to decline in some cases by more than 50%.</p>
<p>“UC’s experience demonstrates that the race-neutral methods which it has diligently pursued for 25 years have been inadequate to meaningfully increase student-body diversity,” the school said in its brief.</p>
<p>The impact on the number of Black and Latino students was virtually immediate. At UCLA, for instance, African American students made up 7.13% of the freshman class in 1995, and only 3.43% in 1998.</p>
<p>More than two decades later, the numbers have not improved. Though Latino students comprise 52.3% of California public high school graduates, only about 25.4% of college freshmen in the UC system identified as Latino. For Black students, the number graduating from high school was 5%, while the number of Black college freshmen was about 4%.</p>
<p>“UC’s decades-long experience with race-neutral approaches demonstrates that highly competitive universities may not be able to achieve the benefits of student body diversity through race-neutral measures alone,” the UC brief stated.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190313/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Travis Knoll received funding from the Social Science Research Council in 2018-2019 to study the history of affirmative action in Brazil.</span></em></p>The US Supreme Court is poised to determine the fate of the use of race in college admissions. Supporters of affirmative action, like the military, fear the worst.Travis Knoll, Adjunct Professor of History, University of North Carolina – CharlotteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1694502021-10-25T12:33:05Z2021-10-25T12:33:05ZWhy do colleges use legacy admissions? 5 questions answered<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/428083/original/file-20211022-9655-15t59fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">More than half of the top 250 U.S. colleges and universities offer legacy admissions. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/general-atmosphere-at-the-harvard-university-2018-367th-news-photo/962132834?adppopup=true">Paul Marotta / Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Legacy admissions – a practice in which colleges give special consideration to children of alumni when deciding who to admit – have been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/20/us/amherst-college-legacy-admissions.html">making headlines</a>. Colleges are increasingly being called on to rethink the merits of the practice – and some colleges are beginning to heed those calls. Here, Nadirah Farah Foley, a postdoctoral associate at New York University, answers five questions about the elitist history of legacy admissions and their uncertain future.</em></p>
<h2>1. How long have legacy admissions been around?</h2>
<p>Legacy admissions <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23055549">became common in the 1920s</a> – one of the most <a href="https://theconversation.com/for-universities-making-the-case-for-diversity-is-part-of-making-amends-for-racist-past-101003">blatantly exclusionary and discriminatory eras</a> in the history of United States higher education.</p>
<p><a href="https://archive.dartmouthalumnimagazine.com/article/1922/1/1/selective-process-instituted-for-the-class-of-1926">Dartmouth College</a> instituted a legacy policy in 1922. <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23055549">Yale University followed</a> in 1925.</p>
<p>At the time, Ivy League universities were preoccupied with preserving their status as bastions of the elite. Harvard, for example, had long been the university of choice for <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/murder-boston-brahmins/">Boston’s upper class</a>. But as students from other backgrounds — <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/books/review/the-chosen-getting-in.html">especially Jews</a> — began to gain admission, Harvard and other elite universities sought to keep “<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/27/AR2005102701733.html">social undesirables</a>” to a minimum on campus, according to
sociologist Jerome Karabel.</p>
<p>As Karabel revealed in his 2006 book “<a href="https://www.hmhbooks.com/shop/books/the-chosen/9780618773558">The Chosen</a>,” by the 1930s, nearly a third of Yale undergraduates were the children of people who themselves had graduated from Yale. This was no accident: Yale’s dean of admissions at the time, James Noyes, wrote in a confidential memo that “the [admissions] Board gives all possible preference to the sons of Yale men.”</p>
<p>Princeton made its preference for legacies even more explicit – and public. A 1958 alumni brochure stated: “No matter how many other boys apply, the Princeton son is judged on this one question: can he be expected to graduate? If so, he’s admitted.”</p>
<h2>2. Why are legacy admissions problematic?</h2>
<p>Legacy admissions are <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2020/02/24/bloomberg-proposal-renews-debate-over-legacy-admissions">frequently debated</a> because they represent a glaring contradiction in American higher education. On the one hand, prestigious universities say they are committed to admitting the “<a href="https://unsp.upenn.edu/why-support/message-from-the-president/">best and brightest</a>.” On the other hand, these same universities uphold a preference for the children of alumni — a practice that <a href="https://tcf.org/content/book/affirmative-action-for-the-rich/?session=1">disproportionately benefits wealthy, white students</a> and is patently not about merit. Admitting an inordinately high percentage of children of privilege raises this question: Do universities really want the best and brightest? Or do they want the richest and whitest?</p>
<h2>3. Couldn’t legacy admissions eventually help historically underrepresented groups?</h2>
<p>Elite universities have grown more diverse in recent decades. Harvard College, for example, was <a href="https://www.wbur.org/news/2018/11/02/harvard-trial-closes">nearly 80% white in 1980</a> but enrolled a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40812196">class that was less than half white in 2017</a>.</p>
<p>So on a small scale, preserving legacy admissions could <a href="https://washingtonmonthly.com/2019/04/20/the-racial-justice-case-for-legacy-admissions/">benefit applicants of color who are children of alumni</a>. But at Princeton, where <a href="https://www.princeton.edu/news/2019/03/28/princeton-pleased-offer-admission-1895-students-class-2023">more than half of admitted students were people of color</a> in 2019, just <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/legacy-preference-gets-fresh-look-following-college-admissions-scandal-11582387200">27% of legacy admits were students of color</a>. The point is, even as universities like Princeton diversify, legacy admissions may continue to skew super white.</p>
<p>It’s also worth remembering that non-white graduates of Harvard and similar institutions — and therefore their children — represent a tiny fraction of people of color. Undergraduate classes at Harvard average around 1,600 students. So <a href="https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/admissions-statistics">even with admitted classes that are over 15% Black</a>, Harvard College graduates at most a few hundred Black students each year. </p>
<p>Giving an additional boost to the children of alumni, even if they are people of color, does little to move the needle on racial equity. Instead, it serves to reproduce an elite – and even a racially diverse elite is still an elite, which can only exist so long as stark inequalities do.</p>
<h2>4. Are colleges responding to calls to end legacy admissions?</h2>
<p>In recent years, a few high-profile universities – including <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/why-we-ended-legacy-admissions-johns-hopkins/605131/">Johns Hopkins University</a> and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/co-state-wire-colorado-race-and-ethnicity-higher-education-government-and-politics-edbc95b683b007e34a2ea214b3e19adb">all public colleges and universities in Colorado</a> – have ended legacy admissions. In October 2021, Amherst College <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/20/us/amherst-college-legacy-admissions.html?searchResultPosition=1">ended legacy admissions</a> as well. </p>
<p>These universities joined a <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/16/top-universities-that-do-not-consider-legacy-when-admitting-students.html">small list</a> of selective schools without legacy preferences. The list includes the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology, which never considered legacy status, and <a href="https://hechingerreport.org/column-as-elite-college-applications-soar-legacy-admissions-still-give-wealthy-and-connected-students-an-edge/">the University of California system</a>, which has not considered legacy status since the 1990s.</p>
<p>But while the percentage of the top 250 U.S. universities that use legacy admissions is <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/prestoncooper2/2020/02/25/the-real-problem-with-legacy-admissions/?sh=1057d1370901">down to 56%</a> – from 63% in 2004 – many selective universities still consider legacy status.</p>
<h2>5. Is there any reason to keep legacy admissions?</h2>
<p>Elite universities often say legacy admissions are necessary to keep alumni donations high. Harvard College’s dean of admissions, William Fitzsimmons, has repeatedly defended Harvard’s preferential treatment of the children of alumni and donors. In a deposition for an <a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/harvard-says-defense-costs-top-25-million-affirmative-action-case-2021-09-20/">affirmative action lawsuit</a> filed against Harvard, he said that legacy preferences were <a href="http://samv91khoyt2i553a2t1s05i-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Doc-416-1-Kahlenberg-Expert-Report.pdf">“essential to Harvard’s well-being</a>.” At trial, <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tylerkingkade/harvard-admissions-trial-fitzsimmons-donors">Fitzsimmons elaborated</a>, “It is important for the long-term strength of the institution to have the resources we need.”</p>
<p>Research, however, has found <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1299224">no correlation between legacy preferences and university revenues</a>. Another study indicated <a href="https://production-tcf.imgix.net/app/uploads/2016/03/08201915/2010-09-15-chapter_5.pdf">legacy admissions policies have little to no effect on alumni giving</a>. </p>
<p>Some defenders of legacy admissions now offer a different justification: the contributions legacy students make to the campus community. Brown University’s dean of admissions, Logan Powell, highlighted the fact that <a href="https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2018/03/powell-dispelling-legacy-myths-should-help-focus-on-access">legacy admissions are very involved in mentoring</a> and internship experiences for current students. Rakesh Khurana, dean of Harvard College, has also highlighted the contributions that children of alumni make on campus. He asserted that it was valuable to have students who “have more experience with Harvard” <a href="http://samv91khoyt2i553a2t1s05i-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Doc-416-1-Kahlenberg-Expert-Report.pdf">alongside “others who are less familiar</a>.”</p>
<p>This use of diversity to defend legacy admissions is notable. Diversity is usually mentioned in defense of <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/affirmative_action">affirmative action</a> – a policy that supports the inclusion of historically underrepresented groups. But now, some universities seem poised to use “diversity” in defense of legacy admissions, which furthers the status quo and keeps generation after generation of elites on campus.</p>
<p>After a century of legacy admissions, there is abundant evidence that wealthy white alumni and their children are the most likely to benefit. There is also little evidence showing why such policies should continue. But legacy admissions are mostly an issue for a small number of selective universities, and a small portion — <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/09/25/metro/boycott-targets-college-admissions-boost-given-children-alumni-harvard-other-elite-schools/#:%7E:text=Among%20Ivy%20League%20schools%2C%20legacies,example%2C%20according%20to%20the%20colleges.">often between 10% to 15%</a> — of their total admissions at that.</p>
<p>Doing away with legacy admissions won’t fix an admissions game <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/EqualEd/EqualEd-Voices/2017/0329/College-admissions-the-myth-of-meritocracy">tilted toward the children of privilege</a>. But as universities profess their commitment to diversity, heeding <a href="https://edmobilizer.org/legacy">calls from alumni to abandon legacy preferences</a> could be one small step toward making sure all applicants get a fairer shake.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nadirah Farah Foley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Elite universities have been giving special preference to children of prior graduates for more than a century. Has the time come for that practice to stop? A sociologist weighs in.Nadirah Farah Foley, Postdoctoral Associate, New York UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1682372021-09-24T12:35:18Z2021-09-24T12:35:18ZWhat Harvard’s humanist chaplain shows about atheism in America<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422979/original/file-20210923-19-irsite.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=35%2C85%2C2959%2C1742&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People in attend a talk at the American Atheists National Convention in 2014. Many Americans remain distrustful of atheists, surveys show.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/AtheistConferenceUtah/7b1a427c335b4a6695c09ebfdc631e31/photo?Query=atheist&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=338&currentItemNo=8">AP Photo/Rick Bowmer</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>At the end of August 2021, Harvard University’s organization of chaplains <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/26/us/harvard-chaplain-greg-epstein.html">unanimously elected</a> Greg Epstein as president. Epstein – the atheist, humanist author of “<a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/good-without-god-greg-epstein?variant=32205367345186">Good Without God</a>” – will be responsible for coordinating the school’s <a href="https://chaplains.harvard.edu/">more than 40 chaplains</a>, who represent a broad range of religious backgrounds. </p>
<p>His election captured media attention, prompting articles in several outlets such as <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/08/29/1032259870/harvards-new-head-chaplain-young-people-are-looking-for-a-non-religious-alternat">NPR</a>, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/20/harvards-atheist-chaplain-controversy">The New Yorker</a>, the <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9929315/New-Harvard-chief-chaplain-atheist-ordained-humanist-rabbi.html">Daily Mail </a> and the <a href="https://www.jewishexponent.com/2021/09/13/the-real-danger-of-that-atheist-harvard-chaplain/">Jewish Exponent </a>. Some portrayed the idea of an atheist chaplain as one more battle in the culture wars. </p>
<p>But the trends that Epstein’s position reflects are not new. Non-religious Americans, sometimes referred to as “nones,” have grown from <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2012/10/NonesOnTheRise-full.pdf">7% of the population in 1970</a> to <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/">more than 25%</a> today. Fully <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/13/a-closer-look-at-americas-rapidly-growing-religious-nones/">35% of millennials say they are not affiliated with any particular religion</a>.</p>
<p>They are part of <a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199341221.001.0001/acprof-9780199341221">a diverse group</a> that’s changing ideas about what it means to be nonreligious. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://wendycadge.com/">sociologists of religion</a>, <a href="http://pennyedgell.com/">we have studied</a> these transitions and their implications. A <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5658afe2e4b0f33a7ad1a4d4/t/582ca13503596ed3373ac56e/1479319862512/Atheists+Social+Forces-2016+FINAL+PUBLISHED+%281%29.pdf">recent study</a> with colleagues at the University of Minnesota shows that, while Americans are becoming more comfortable with alternative forms of spirituality, they are less comfortable with those they see as entirely secular.</p>
<p>We argue that Epstein’s election represents a shift that shows the increasing visibility and acceptance of nonreligious Americans. At the same time, the commotion around his position shows many Americans’ lingering <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5658afe2e4b0f33a7ad1a4d4/t/582ca13503596ed3373ac56e/1479319862512/Atheists+Social+Forces-2016+FINAL+PUBLISHED+%281%29.pdf">moral unease</a> about atheism.</p>
<p>Epstein seems to understand this cultural dilemma and emphasizes his commitments to <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/22419487/religion-justice-fairness">social justice</a> and humanism, <a href="https://americanhumanist.org/what-is-humanism/definition-of-humanism/">a philosophy</a> that rejects supernatural beliefs and seeks to promote the greater good. In doing so, he is becoming a spokesman for something new in the American context: an atheism that explicitly emphasizes its morality.</p>
<h2>Joining ranks</h2>
<p>Atheism has long generated contention in the United States, <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691168647/village-atheists">going back to colonial times</a>. But the late 19th century’s “<a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780805077766">Golden Age” of freethought</a> brought the first widespread public expressions of skepticism toward religion. Lawyer and public orator <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Robert-G-Ingersoll">Robert Ingersoll</a> drew religious leaders’ ire as he lectured on agnosticism in sold-out halls across the country.</p>
<p>In the 1920s, the <a href="http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/evolut.htm">Scopes “Monkey Trial</a>” over the teaching of Darwin’s theory of evolution in public schools highlighted struggles over religious authority in America’s laws and institutions. Meanwhile, Black skeptics of religion, often <a href="https://nyupress.org/9780814766729/by-these-hands/">overlooked by scholars</a>, influenced artists like <a href="https://www.aaihs.org/agents-of-change-black-freethinkers-then-and-now/">Zora Neal Hurston</a> and, later, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/t-magazine/james-baldwin-pentecostal-church.html">James Baldwin</a>. Many Americans know of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/16/us/bodies-identified-as-those-of-missing-atheist-and-kin.html">Madalyn Murray O’Hair</a>, who successfully challenged mandated Christian prayer and Bible readings in public schools in the 1960s and founded the organization that became <a href="https://www.atheists.org/">American Atheists</a>. </p>
<p>More recently, a <a href="https://secular.org/">growing number of atheist and humanist organizations</a> have promoted the separation of church and state, fought discrimination, supported pro-science policies and encouraged public figures to “<a href="https://richarddawkins.net/2019/08/i-prefer-non-religious-why-so-few-us-politicians-come-out-as-atheists/">come out</a>” as atheist. </p>
<p>Black atheists, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/06/16/blacks-are-even-discriminated-against-by-atheists/">not always feeling welcome</a> in white-led organizations, have formed their <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/fashion/african-american-atheists.html">own</a>, often centered on social justice. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Humanist chaplain Bart Campolo walks past the United University Church at the University of Southern California in 2015." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423033/original/file-20210923-22-189bo8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423033/original/file-20210923-22-189bo8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423033/original/file-20210923-22-189bo8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423033/original/file-20210923-22-189bo8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423033/original/file-20210923-22-189bo8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423033/original/file-20210923-22-189bo8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423033/original/file-20210923-22-189bo8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Humanist chaplain Bart Campolo walks past the United University Church at the University of Southern California in 2015. A handful of campuses, including Harvard, now have humanist chaplains.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/AtheistChaplains/d0f6eb7acc894f35a34d350bb260f844/photo?Query=harvard%20AND%20chaplain&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=9&currentItemNo=2">AP Photo/Jae C. Hong</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>No God, no trust?</h2>
<p>Despite this increasing <a href="https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/id/0d8b9ed5-a402-42bd-afe6-f08d4fa595a5/650053.pdf">organization and visibility</a>, a large percentage of Americans <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/a0025882">do not trust</a> atheists to be good neighbors and citizens. <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5658afe2e4b0f33a7ad1a4d4/t/582ca13503596ed3373ac56e/1479319862512/Atheists+Social+Forces-2016+FINAL+PUBLISHED+%281%29.pdf">A national survey</a> in 2014 found that 42% of Americans said atheists did not share their “vision of American society,” and 44% would not want their child marrying an atheist. Those percentages were virtually unchanged in a <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5658afe2e4b0f33a7ad1a4d4/t/614c828db0ce99001f60eb04/1632404109942/AMP+Wave+2.5+Report+fall+2020+%281%29.pdf">2019 follow-up</a>. </p>
<p>These attitudes affect young people like those to whom Epstein ministers. A <a href="https://www.secularsurvey.org/executive-summary">third of atheists under age 25</a> report experiencing discrimination at school, and over 40% say they sometimes hide their nonreligious identity for fear of stigma. </p>
<p>As a chaplain, Epstein’s job is to provide <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/why-americans-are-turning-chaplains-during-pandemic/611767/">spiritual guidance</a> and moral council to students, with a special focus on those who do not identify with a religious tradition. He himself identifies as an atheist, but also as a humanist.</p>
<p>In U.S. society, humanism is increasingly accepted as a positive, and moral, belief system, which some react to more favorably than to atheism, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20453183">which is perceived as a rejection of religion</a>. And <a href="http://humanistchaplaincies.org/humanist-chaplaincies/">a handful</a> of America’s college campuses now have <a href="https://www.humanistchaplains.org/">humanist chaplains</a>.</p>
<p>But atheism remains more controversial in the United States, and an atheist chaplain is a harder sell. Efforts to include atheist chaplains in the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/us/27atheists.html">military</a>, for example, have <a href="https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2018/03/26/no-atheistchaplains-lawmakers-tell-navy/">not succeeded</a>.</p>
<h2>Shift in tone</h2>
<p>Epstein, a vocal advocate for humanism, appears to be pushing back against Americans’ persistent <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5658afe2e4b0f33a7ad1a4d4/t/582ca13503596ed3373ac56e/1479319862512/Atheists+Social+Forces-2016+FINAL+PUBLISHED+%281%29.pdf">moral concerns</a> about atheism identified in <a href="https://cla.umn.edu/sociology/research-collaboration/collaboration-opportunities/american-mosaic-project-amp/american">the research from the University of Minnesota</a>. </p>
<p>His book <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121813448">openly challenges</a> those views by arguing that atheism is a morally anchoring identity for people around the world. He talks at length about how humanism can motivate <a href="https://podcasts.la.utexas.edu/raceanddemocracy/podcast/ep-50-race-humanism-and-the-search-for-the-common-faith-a-conversation-with-greg-epstein/">concern for racial justice</a> and has called for political leaders on the left <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/03/14/opinion/truly-inclusive-vision-america-recognizes-nonreligious-too/">to embrace the nonreligious</a> as an important, values-motivated constituency. </p>
<p>This marks a different approach from <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-arguments-of-the-new-atheists-are-often-just-as-violent-as-religion-95185">more militant</a> high-profile atheists, particularly the <a href="http://www.the-brights.net/">Brights movement</a> and the so-called <a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/palcomms.2016.99">New Atheist</a> intellectuals like <a href="https://www.hmhbooks.com/shop/books/The-God-Delusion/9780618680009">Richard Dawkins</a> or <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/80738/god-is-not-great-by-christopher-hitchens/9780771041433">Christopher Hitchens</a>. Epstein does not position himself “against religion” but seeks to cooperate with religious leaders on matters of common moral concern.</p>
<p>It’s too soon to say whether Epstein’s strategy of linking atheism to humanism, <a href="https://thehumanist.com/magazine/july-august-2018/features/humanist-interview-greg-epstein/">justice</a> and morality will be successful in changing attitudes toward atheists. It is, however, likely to keep him in the public eye, a symbol of the transition in how Americans relate to organized religion. </p>
<p>[<em>3 media outlets, 1 religion newsletter.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/this-week-in-religion-76/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=religion-3-in-1">Get stories from The Conversation, AP and RNS.</a>]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168237/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Penny Edgell receives funding from The National Science Foundation and the Edelstein Family Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wendy Cadge receives funding from the Henry Luce Foundation and the Templeton Religion Trust.</span></em></p>Americans are getting more comfortable with new forms of spirituality, but their views of atheists are still complicated.Penny Edgell, Professor of Sociology, University of MinnesotaWendy Cadge, Professor of Sociology and Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1678682021-09-22T13:14:02Z2021-09-22T13:14:02ZHarvard’s decision to ditch fossil fuel investments reflects changing financial realities and its climate change stance<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422454/original/file-20210921-21-1f8rw8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C882%2C4439%2C1663&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Students had demanded for years that Harvard University divest from fossil fuels.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/students-demanding-that-harvard-university-divest-from-news-photo/660543058">Keith Bedford/The Boston Globe via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Harvard University will keep <a href="https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2021/9/10/divest-declares-victory/">phasing out all investments tied to oil, gas and coal</a>, it announced on Sept. 9, 2021. When <a href="https://www.harvard.edu/president/news/2021/climate-change-update-on-harvard-action/">Larry Bacow</a>, the school’s president, announced this plan, he cast it as a response to climate change – part of a broader trend that’s gaining steam among <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/20/us/university-of-california-divest-fossil-fuels-trnd/index.html">many large institutions with endowments</a>.</p>
<p>“We must act now as citizens, as scholars and as an institution to address this crisis on as many fronts as we have at our disposal,” he wrote. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2021/9/10/divest-declares-victory/">Climate activists on and off Harvard’s campus</a> called the announcement a victory in response to their yearslong campaign demanding fossil fuel divestment.</p>
<p>But as a law professor who writes and researches about the role <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=557612">climate change considerations can play in investments</a> held by universities, foundations and other large institutions, I instead see it as part of a bigger story. Investing with climate change in mind is now an accepted practice for endowments, whether or not an institution uses the word divestment to describe this strategy. </p>
<h2>No quick shift</h2>
<p>Interestingly, Bacow didn’t say Harvard is divesting from fossil fuels.</p>
<p>Instead, he explained that less than 2% of its <a href="https://finance.harvard.edu/files/fad/files/fy20_harvard_financial_report.pdf">roughly US$42 billion endowment</a> is connected to those industries, through stakes in <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/121614/what-difference-between-hedge-fund-and-private-equity-fund.asp">private equity funds</a>. These indirect investments will soon be phased out, and Harvard will not acquire any new assets with fossil fuel exposure in the future, its president said.</p>
<p>“We do not believe such investments are prudent,” Bacow said.</p>
<p>And that is not a sudden change. The university’s declared intention to shed its fossil fuel holdings is the continuation of a longstanding strategy. Several months earlier, in <a href="http://www.hmc.harvard.edu/content/uploads/2021/02/2021-Climate-Report.pdf">February 2021</a>, Harvard had said it no longer “had direct exposure to companies that explore for or develop further reserves of fossil fuels.”</p>
<p>The term divestment is generally <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/divestment.asp">used in business</a> to refer to selling an asset or the division of a company. In this context, it means selling off stocks, bonds and other assets held in an investment portfolio tied to a specific industry <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/44282151">based on ethical reasons</a> – rather than for financial motives.</p>
<p>Some schools, including <a href="https://www.rutgers.edu/news/rutgers-divest-fossil-fuels">Rutgers University</a> and <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2020/04/22/american-u-divests-fossil-fuels">American University</a>, have followed a strategy similar to Harvard’s and called it “divestment.” </p>
<p>Harvard, however, has refused – even now – to use that word. As a result, students, faculty and others had continued to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/09/10/1035901596/harvard-university-end-investment-fossil-fuel-industry-climate-change-activism">pressure Harvard to divest</a>, even after it began to <a href="https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2021/09/did-harvard-climate-announcement-mean-divestment">move in this direction in 2008</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422456/original/file-20210921-21-7nhawy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Harvard University President Larry Bacow speaking before a microphone" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422456/original/file-20210921-21-7nhawy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422456/original/file-20210921-21-7nhawy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422456/original/file-20210921-21-7nhawy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422456/original/file-20210921-21-7nhawy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422456/original/file-20210921-21-7nhawy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422456/original/file-20210921-21-7nhawy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422456/original/file-20210921-21-7nhawy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Harvard University President Larry Bacow avoided the word ‘divestment’ when he explained what the school’s investment strategy is for fossil fuels.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/HarvardMedalists/cdc849fc4b554de899b01bb7547e94eb/photo?boardId=37be9465fcce45d283d5431cccb20a6a&st=boards&mediaType=audio,photo,video,graphic&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=179&currentItemNo=1">AP Photo/Elise Amendola</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What changed?</h2>
<p>Investing with climate change in mind, or, more broadly, the use of strategies for sustainable and responsible investing, has <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2656640">undergone a transformation</a> and <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/esg-investing-now-accounts-for-one-third-of-total-u-s-assets-under-management-11605626611">become far more common</a> in recent years.</p>
<p>Investing that incorporates <a href="https://www.cfainstitute.org/en/research/esg-investing">environmental, social and governance</a> factors into decision-making, known as ESG investment, may mean avoiding a company because that information indicates uncompensated financial risk.</p>
<p>Since many people are used to thinking of climate or environmental factors as nonfinancial, the idea of using environmental information in an investment decision sounds risky, but it need not be. The environmental information is added to traditional financial metrics, with a goal of improving financial returns or reducing financial risk.</p>
<p>Efforts to act on concerns about climate change and its <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/06/impact-climate-change-global-gdp/">serious financial consequences</a> are creating good investment opportunities that might help investors make money too. A study that looked at 35 university endowments that divested from fossil fuels – whether they called it that or not – found that refraining from investments in those industries <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3501231">generally didn’t affect endowment performance</a> from 2011 to 2018.</p>
<p>Aligning an organization’s investments with its mission has also become a more common and accepted practice for charities – a <a href="https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/042103580#:%7E:text=Harvard%20University%20is%20a%20501,and%20donations%20are%20tax%2Ddeductible.">category of nonprofits that includes Harvard</a> and thousands of other universities.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://nonprofitlawblog.com/foundation-new-rules-mission-related-investments/">Internal Revenue Service has issued guidance</a> regarding how charities, as long as certain conditions are met, may use investments to help carry out their missions – not just to produce income. Indeed, the IRS said that some charities can earn a <a href="https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-15-62.pdf">below-market return on their investments</a> due to practices that are tied to their missions. </p>
<p>For example, a charitable organization seeking to improve air quality can invest its holdings in wind, solar and other forms of renewable energy. Even if those investments might appear bound to produce a smaller return than other kinds of assets, which <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/investing/wind-stocks/">could prove to be an unfounded fear</a>, the investment should nonetheless be considered prudent because it carries out the organization’s mission.</p>
<p>That is why I was intrigued to see that <a href="https://www.harvard.edu/president/news/2021/climate-change-update-on-harvard-action/">Bacow’s open letter</a> to the Harvard community recognized that seeking to slow climate change is connected with the university’s mission. Its endowment “is building a portfolio of investments in funds that support the transition to a green economy,” he wrote.</p>
<p>The letter also emphasizes Harvard’s mission: “The principal way we influence the world is through our research and teaching,” Bacow wrote.</p>
<p>As complicated as strategies for using a university’s endowment to address climate change may prove, I expect to see other schools following Harvard’s lead.</p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167868/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan Gary has served on the Steering Committee of the Intentional Endowments Network and currently serves on the Fiduciary Duty and Policy Group of that organization. She has served on the Advisory Committee of the NYU National Center on Philanthropy and the Law. In 2017 she received a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation to be an Academic Writing Resident Fellow at the Bellagio Center, where she worked on an article about fiduciary duties and ESG investing.</span></em></p>The announcement didn’t use the word ‘divest.’ A legal scholar explains why that shouldn’t matter.Susan Gary, Professor Emerita of Law, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1249672019-11-13T13:08:26Z2019-11-13T13:08:26ZHow higher ed can deal with ethical questions over its disgraced donors<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300509/original/file-20191106-12474-15qlfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">UCLA gave $425,000 back to Donald Sterling in 2014 after he disparaged Magic Johnson. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/College-Admissions-Bribery/f9df911c804347b991a41c19640d5142/3/0">AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Private donors are giving <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/06/20/donations-colleges-are-number-donors-down">colleges and universities record amounts of money</a> – along with increasingly frequent bouts of <a href="https://apnews.com/8f48e18ee46b40ae8edda9d89845f087">public shame</a> when they turn out to have embarrassing baggage.</p>
<p>Revelations that <a href="https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2019/09/25/yale-wont-accept-sackler-donations/">Yale</a>, <a href="https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Colleges-got-60M-plus-from-OxyContin-family-columbia-cornell-562066681.html">Columbia</a>, <a href="https://cornellsun.com/2019/10/03/cornell-received-millions-from-scandal-ridden-sackler-family-but-the-university-says-it-wont-accept-more/">Cornell</a> and other prestigious schools in the U.S. and elsewhere accepted millions over the past five years from members of the <a href="https://apnews.com/fe455c8bd8af41ca94ce0bcada92381a">Sackler family</a> have raised questions from students and alumni. The schools kept accepting donations even as the Sacklers were being sued over their drug company’s role in bringing on the U.S. opioid crisis.</p>
<p>Likewise, the willingness of <a href="https://www.stanforddaily.com/2019/09/13/jeffrey-epstein-donated-50000-to-stanford-physics-department-in-2004/">Stanford</a>, <a href="https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2019/9/13/harvard-reviews-epstein-gifts/">Harvard</a> and <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/10/mit-media-lab-jeffrey-epstein-money-women.html">MIT</a> to take money from disgraced financier and alleged sex trafficker <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/epsteins-donations-to-universities-reveal-a-painful-truth-about-philanthropy/2019/09/04/e600adae-c86d-11e9-a4f3-c081a126de70_story.html">Jeffrey Epstein</a> has caused upheaval on those campuses.</p>
<p>I have studied the <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=wautapsAAAAJ&hl=en">ethical questions school leaders face</a> regarding donor dollars for more than 20 years. This new airing of institutional dirty laundry has reinforced my theory of what colleges and universities should do to protect themselves and their reputations moving forward.</p>
<p>In my view, schools need a method for dealing with donors who become dubious after a gift has been accepted. Even better, they need to create fundraising policies that set limits on what donations the school accepts and put procedures in place that protect schools and donors regardless of whether donors pass the smell test from the start. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300365/original/file-20191105-88368-17pjz5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300365/original/file-20191105-88368-17pjz5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300365/original/file-20191105-88368-17pjz5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300365/original/file-20191105-88368-17pjz5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300365/original/file-20191105-88368-17pjz5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300365/original/file-20191105-88368-17pjz5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300365/original/file-20191105-88368-17pjz5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300365/original/file-20191105-88368-17pjz5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">University of Virginia students engaged in plans to construct a memorial in honor of the enslaved people who built the original structures in its campus two centuries ago.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/University-of-Virginia/9485792b9b4e4e2e891ad5bfed01d4ad/359/">AP Photo/Steve Helber</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Lofty values</h2>
<p>I believe that institutions of higher education should let students, faculty, staff and alumni help review or create new gift acceptance policies, rather than wait for their next donor-induced public relations crisis. </p>
<p>And I feel strongly that each school should turn to their own messaging for guidance.</p>
<p>Every U.S. college and university, whether public or private, religious or secular, <a href="https://blogs.lt.vt.edu/joyce/how-university-mission-statements-are-similar-and-different/">spells out its mission</a>, visions and values. </p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://www.yale.edu/about-yale/mission-statement">Yale</a> is “committed to improving the world today and for future generations through outstanding research and scholarship, education, preservation, and practice.”</p>
<p><a href="https://illinois.edu/about/">The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign</a> aims “to enhance the lives of citizens in Illinois, across the nation and around the world through our leadership in learning, discovery, engagement and economic development.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.prescott.edu/our_story">Prescott College</a>, a private liberal arts college in Arizona, seeks “to educate students of diverse ages and backgrounds to understand, thrive in, and enhance our world community and environment.”</p>
<p>These statements aren’t mere slogans. They are public expression of a societal role and of commitments to students, faculty, donors and the public.</p>
<p>Two of the best ways that colleges and universities can show students the practical side of ethics is by being transparent about their leaders’ decisions and by engaging <a href="https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/university-ethics">students to think through the tough questions with them</a>. </p>
<h2>Engaged students</h2>
<p>And why not invite all students to wrestle with these ethical questions? Some schools, including <a href="https://www.scu.edu/giving/how-to-give/policies/gift-acceptance-guidelines.html">Santa Clara University</a> and <a href="https://www.beloit.edu/live/files/116-gift-policies-guidelines">Beloit College</a>, already include a student representative on their gift acceptance committees. </p>
<p>It is rare, but not unheard of, for all students to be invited to give input to leaders who are making tough decisions dealing with money.</p>
<p>At Georgetown University, in April 2019, students weighed in on whether to pay reparations to descendants of enslaved people sold by the University in 1838. Two-thirds of the students voting did more than simply show support for providing reparations. They also voted in favor of having <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/15/georgetown-students-reparations-vote-slaves-sold-by-university">students pay a fee</a> to fund the payments.</p>
<p>Six months later, the school said it would implement the recommendation, but <a href="https://wtop.com/dc/2019/10/georgetown-university-announces-plan-to-make-amends-for-slave-trade-involvement-through-fundraising-efforts/">without the student fee</a>. Instead, school administrators decided that the university and its donors would shoulder the cost. </p>
<p>Similarly, the University of Virginia sought input from students on the design of the campus <a href="https://slavery.virginia.edu/memorial-for-enslaved-laborers/">memorial for the enslaved people</a> who built its campus in the 19th century. The memorial is now under construction in Charlottesville. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300364/original/file-20191105-88399-1wh5zo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300364/original/file-20191105-88399-1wh5zo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300364/original/file-20191105-88399-1wh5zo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300364/original/file-20191105-88399-1wh5zo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300364/original/file-20191105-88399-1wh5zo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300364/original/file-20191105-88399-1wh5zo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300364/original/file-20191105-88399-1wh5zo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300364/original/file-20191105-88399-1wh5zo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A statue of donor and Nazi memorabilia enthusiast Ralph Engelstad still stands in a hockey arena named after him on the University of North Dakota campus.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Fighting-Sioux-Nickname/a18e92c7caa44eb98cdaad6e130a2480/11/0">AP Photo/Dale Wetzel</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Disgraced donors</h2>
<p>Campus communities that receive major gifts from donors who become disgraced later on have several options.</p>
<p>They may decide to give back money from donors who have engaged in behavior deemed inconsistent with the school’s values. The University of California, Los Angeles did that in 2014 when it gave $425,000 back to <a href="https://www.sbnation.com/nba/2014/5/12/5711746/donald-sterling-inteview-cnn-anderson-cooper-la-clippers">Donald Sterling</a>, after the then-owner of the local basketball team made racist comments about Magic Johnson. UCLA also declined the balance of a <a href="http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/ucla-rejects-donald-sterling-gift">$3 million pledge</a> Sterling had made to support kidney research.</p>
<p>At the other extreme, schools may keep the names of donors on their walls or associated with department chairs – even if those benefactors become a source of embarrassment.</p>
<p>For example, the <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Long-Strange-Demise-of/233882">University of North Dakota</a> uses a hockey arena on its campus named after <a href="https://apnews.com/f78374e0f7fa4878a43151d9a4af45a7">Ralph Engelstad</a>. The late casino magnate, who spent <a href="https://www.si.com/vault/2001/10/08/311610/face-off-a-bullying-north-dakota-alumnus-built-the-school-a-100-million-rink-but-tore-its-campus-asunder">$110 million to build the venue</a>, hosted “<a href="https://people.com/archive/learning-of-a-casino-owners-birthday-parties-for-hitler-even-jaded-vegas-is-outraged-vol-30-no-17/">Hitler birthday parties</a>” and opposed the retirement of the “<a href="https://wtkr.com/2015/11/19/university-of-north-dakota-changes-controversial-mascot-name/">fighting Sioux</a>” as the school’s official athletic mascot.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://economics.missouri.edu/people/haslag">University of Missouri</a> still has an endowed economics chair named for <a href="https://www.columbiamissourian.com/news/local/mu-professor-haslag-named-kenneth-lay-chair-in-economics/article_172392e6-dfd6-5353-8b6c-ec5c2f8def37.html">Kenneth L. Lay</a>, the disgraced founder of the Enron energy company. Lay gave the school $1.1 million in Enron stock in 1999, two years before the company went bankrupt and seven years before he was found <a href="https://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2006/May/06_crm_328.html">guilty of securities fraud</a> and other misdeeds.</p>
<p><a href="https://money.cnn.com/2005/09/19/news/newsmakers/kozlowski_sentence/">Seton Hall University</a>, however, managed to reach agreement with donor <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/08/19/seton-hall-drops-name-donorfelon">Dennis Kozlowski</a>, a former CEO convicted of pilfering money from the company he ran. The school <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2005/08/18/news/newsmakers/kozlowski_seton/">kept his gift but purged</a> Kozlowski’s name from campus buildings. </p>
<p>A more creative solution that I support as an ethicist is redirecting funds to research relevant to the donor’s crime or misbehavior once misdeeds are discovered.</p>
<p>Imagine if every school that took donations from Jeffrey Epstein were to funnel that same amount of money into research on the prevention of sex trafficking and treatment of pedophilia. That boost might bring about social change.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.browndailyherald.com/2019/09/26/university-redirect-gifts-sackler-family-foundation/">Brown University</a> is already doing this by redirecting Sackler donations to off-campus opioid addiction treatment centers. And the <a href="https://www.courant.com/politics/hc-pol-uconn-sackler-redirect-funds-20191020-6d3sbienmbdgrcawzgaqqcc5cu-story.html">University of Connecticut</a> is using some donations it accepted from the Sacklers to fund addiction research and education.</p>
<p>I believe that any decision to redirect donor dollars should adhere to institutional messages and show that administrators have heard their stakeholders’ concerns.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300363/original/file-20191105-88394-1hinvl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300363/original/file-20191105-88394-1hinvl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300363/original/file-20191105-88394-1hinvl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300363/original/file-20191105-88394-1hinvl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300363/original/file-20191105-88394-1hinvl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300363/original/file-20191105-88394-1hinvl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300363/original/file-20191105-88394-1hinvl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300363/original/file-20191105-88394-1hinvl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">There’s an endowed chair still named after Enron founder Ken Lay, who took the fifth when Congress asked him to explain what led to his company’s implosion.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Dist-of-Columbi-/c587a89766e5da11af9f0014c2589dfb/5/0">AP Photo/Ron Edmonds</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Escape hatches</h2>
<p>When schools allow major donors to name buildings, programs or new wings of hospitals or museums, the question of what they might want to do in the face of <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-harder-than-you-might-expect-for-charities-to-give-back-tainted-money-97526">misconduct by the donor</a> rarely comes up. Neglecting that discussion may limit what can be done after the fact.</p>
<p>With no escape hatch written into gift agreements, as could be <a href="http://donorguru.blogspot.com/2014/04/morality-clauses-do-you-have-one.html">mandated by policies</a>, the only way to take donors’ names down is often by repaying them or their heirs. Adjusted for inflation, these repayments can be quite expensive.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://policies.catholic.edu/advancement/giftnaming.html">Catholic University of America</a>’s gift acceptance policy is a good model. It tells donors their naming rights may be revoked if the school “determines that its association with the donor will materially damage the reputation of the University.” <a href="https://www.cmu.edu/policies/administrative-and-governance/naming-gifts.html">Carnegie Mellon University</a> has adopted this language, too.</p>
<p>Whether intended or not, the choices university presidents and other campus leaders make, or fail to make, speak to their school’s character and integrity. Bringing students into the discussion is likely to result in policies and responses that are consistent with the school’s values and with <a href="https://teachingcenter.wustl.edu/2017/10/civic-engagement-and-higher-education/">the whole point of higher education</a>.</p>
<p>[ <em>Insight, in your inbox each day.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=insight">You can get it with The Conversation’s email newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124967/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Deni Elliott has received funding for her work from Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Spencer Foundation, Arthur W. Page Center, Montana Committee for the Humanities, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; National Science Foundation, Centers for Academic Integrity, U.S. Department of Education, International Environmental Institute, New Hampshire Humanities Council, Lily Endowment, Kellogg Foundation, Peter Kiewit Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and Marion Jasper Whiting Foundation. </span></em></p>Colleges and universities should apply the best techniques of research and education to their own decision-making.Deni Elliott, Eleanor Poynter Jamison Chair in Media Ethics and Press Policy; Co-Chief Project Officer on the National Ethics Project, University of South FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1245682019-10-02T12:24:51Z2019-10-02T12:24:51ZHarvard can use race as an admissions factor, at least for now<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295147/original/file-20191002-101479-1ycdhgt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A federal judge ruled that Harvad can continue to use race as one of many factors in its admission decisions.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/197551889?src=1eIbpextYNMTINeeYF46tw-1-10&size=huge_jpg">f11photo/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note: A federal judge has upheld Harvard University’s use of race in college admissions, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/01/us/harvard-admissions-lawsuit.html">rejecting claims</a> that the school discriminated against Asian Americans to admit more black and Hispanic students. Vinay Harpalani, an expert on affirmative action in university admissions, discusses what the ruling means for colleges and universities that consider race as one of many factors in their admission decisions.</em></p>
<h2>What is your reaction to the Harvard ruling?</h2>
<p>I’m not surprised by the ruling at all. You can use race as one factor in a flexible manner. You can’t use quotas. You can’t use a point system. You cannot say every black or Latino applicant will get a certain fixed number of points. The 2003 Supreme Court case, <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2002/02-241">Grutter v. Bollinger</a>, made that clear. But Harvard doesn’t do that. Harvard uses race in a flexible manner. For some applicants it will matter a lot. For others, race won’t matter at all.</p>
<p>The plaintiff in the <a href="http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2019/images/10/01/harvard.pdf">case decided Tuesday</a>, Students for Fair Admissions, claimed that Harvard was intentionally discriminating against Asian Americans. The court says they did not prove that. The court said Harvard used race in a legal way to have enough black and Latino students to gain the benefits of enrolling a diverse group of students. That’s really the justification for affirmative action. </p>
<p>In Grutter, the court said that diversity is a valid reason to use race. But Harvard also had to show it cannot get to those educational benefits of diversity unless it uses race. And the judge ruled Harvard has shown that.</p>
<h2>Will this case be appealed?</h2>
<p>You can almost be certain it will be appealed. The first step would be for Students for Fair Admissions to appeal to the First Circuit Court of Appeals.</p>
<p>If they lose there, they can try to take the case to the Supreme Court. Students for Fair Admissions want to change the law. The courts have gotten more conservative. If this case goes to the Supreme Court, we could have a change in the law. The Supreme Court could say diversity is not a compelling interest. </p>
<p>Whether the Supreme Court would take the case is another question.</p>
<h2>Justice Sandra Day O'Connor stated in Grutter vs. Bollinger that perhaps in 25 years, colleges and universities would no longer need to use race in college admissions. How close do you think we are to that point?</h2>
<p>The case was decided in 2003 so 25 years would be 2028. We’re not at the year 2028. There’s a <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/748/Fisher_I_oral_argument_-_October_10_2012.pdf?1569985519">question</a> about whether that statement was legally binding or not. Justice O'Connor <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/Sandra-Day-OConnor-Revisits/63523">later said</a> that her statement wasn’t meant to be legally binding. It was an aspiration.</p>
<p>Conservative justices and people who don’t want affirmative action or the use of race may argue that what O'Connor said was binding as 2028 approaches.</p>
<p>There’s a lot of racial inequity in our society in terms of predominately black schools and white schools and how many resources they have. There’s other psychological barriers, such as <a href="https://www.apa.org/research/action/stereotype">stereotype threat</a>. There’s <a href="https://www.apa.org/research/action/stereotype">research</a> that shows the very thought of being stereotyped may depress African American performance.</p>
<p>We’re making slow progress. But overall, eliminating racial inequities in education is not going to happen in 10 years.</p>
<p>[ <em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124568/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vinay Harpalani does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Tuesday’s ruling in the Harvard affirmative action case allows colleges to use race in their admission decisions. A legal scholar offers insights into how long before race won’t be needed.Vinay Harpalani, Associate Professor, University of New MexicoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1200632019-08-27T12:59:20Z2019-08-27T12:59:20ZA new tax on big college and university endowments is sending higher education a message<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289503/original/file-20190826-8868-1ahl8uq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Stanford will most likely have to pay a new higher ed tax.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/California-Universities/6f90297c842c4007a370e4bae0dc4337/2/0">AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The nation’s wealthiest private colleges and universities have a new expense.</p>
<p>Thanks to a provision in the <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/taxes/trumps-tax-reform-plan-explained/">tax reform package</a> that President Donald Trump signed in late 2017, these schools are paying a <a href="https://federalregister.gov/d/2019-13935">1.4% tax</a> on their net investment income. This highly targeted tax only applies to schools with endowments worth at least US$500,000 per tuition-paying student. </p>
<p>One aspect of this new legislation surprised me, even though I’m an expert on the <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=QOWY7xUAAAAJ&hl=en">growth of university endowments</a> and potential government responses to this trend. In my view, the structure of the tax implicitly warns elite schools that they need to do a better job of serving low-income students.</p>
<h2>Mega-endowments</h2>
<p>Endowments fund student financial aid, academic programs, research and overall university operations. Schools build endowments by soliciting money or other financial assets from donors and then investing those
assets to grow principal and create income for future expenditures.</p>
<p>The vast majority of colleges and universities have modest endowments of no more than <a href="https://www.clevelandfed.org/en/newsroom-and-events/publications/economic-commentary/2018-economic-commentaries/ec-201804-college-endowments.aspx">$50 million</a>, but some schools have what I call <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1124544">“mega-endowments”</a> that are <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-should-we-measure-the-size-of-a-universitys-endowment-54634">far larger</a> than what is necessary to support institutional operations.</p>
<p>The Internal Revenue Service <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/07/03/2019-13935/guidance-on-the-determination-of-the-section-4968-excise-tax-applicable-to-certain-private-colleges">estimates</a> that up to 40 schools may have endowments large enough to owe the tax.</p>
<p>Based on the latest available <a href="https://www.nacubo.org/Research/2019/Public-NTSE-Tables">data, from 2018</a>, this surely will include <a href="https://www.harvardmagazine.com/endowment-18">Harvard, with a $39 billion endowment</a>. The tax will also no doubt hit <a href="https://news.yale.edu/2018/10/01/investment-return-123-brings-yale-endowment-value-294-billion">Yale, with its $29 billion endowment</a> and <a href="https://facts.stanford.edu/administration/finances/">Stanford, with $26.5 billion</a>. </p>
<p>With an endowment as large as Harvard’s, for example, the school would have to enroll more than 76,000 students before it fell beneath the taxing trigger. But it has a total of only about <a href="https://www.harvard.edu/about-harvard/harvard-glance">20,000 students</a> enrolled in its undergraduate and graduate programs. </p>
<p>Some of the other schools that will likely owe the new tax are less prominent, but have large endowments relative to student body size. For instance, <a href="https://www.amherst.edu/offices/office_of_the_chief_financial_officer/annual_reports">Amherst</a>, a private college in Massachusetts with a nearly $2.4 billion endowment and about 1,800 students, will surely face this new obligation. <a href="http://www.intentionalendowments.org/grinnell_college">Grinnell</a>, a private college in Iowa with an almost $2 billion endowment and roughly 1,700 students, is also likely to pay.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288827/original/file-20190820-170935-1qznu0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C1505%2C4509%2C1938&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288827/original/file-20190820-170935-1qznu0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C1505%2C4509%2C1938&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288827/original/file-20190820-170935-1qznu0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288827/original/file-20190820-170935-1qznu0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288827/original/file-20190820-170935-1qznu0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288827/original/file-20190820-170935-1qznu0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288827/original/file-20190820-170935-1qznu0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288827/original/file-20190820-170935-1qznu0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Princeton’s endowment is among the nation’s biggest.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/New-Jersey-Daily-Life/8e21a0352e744fef8ad348a0e8757057/2/0">AP Photo/Seth Wenig</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Proposed regulations</h2>
<p>Within the next few months the complete list of schools that have to pay the tax will become a matter of public record.</p>
<p>The upcoming months will also provide a better sense of what counts as investment income. This will certainly include income produced by a school’s endowment, but may include more.</p>
<p>In July, the IRS issued <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/07/03/2019-13935/guidance-on-the-determination-of-the-section-4968-excise-tax-applicable-to-certain-private-colleges">proposed regulations</a> that would also include other sources of income, such as interest on student loans and rents from school-owned housing.</p>
<p>The IRS is currently taking comments on these <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/07/03/2019-13935/guidance-on-the-determination-of-the-section-4968-excise-tax-applicable-to-certain-private-colleges">proposed regulations</a>. It will issue final regulations after the comment period closes on Oct. 1.</p>
<p>Prior to this latest round of tax reforms, the income of all nonprofit colleges and universities was exempt from any federal tax so long as the income was derived from activities related to an educational purpose, such as instruction and research. </p>
<h2>Why tax these endowments</h2>
<p>To help offset the costs of overseeing the nonprofit sector, the government has long made <a href="https://www.cof.org/public-policy/private-foundation-excise-tax">foundations pay either a 1% or 2% tax</a> on their net investment income. The new rules for taxing the richest colleges and universities’ net investment income are akin to how the government taxes private foundations.</p>
<p>But Congress did not make clear why it decided to levy a tax on the net investment income of the wealthiest colleges and universities. </p>
<p>Undoubtedly, Congress wanted to find revenue to offset the cost of <a href="https://www.crfb.org/blogs/tax-cut-and-spending-bill-could-cost-55-trillion-through-2029">assorted tax cuts</a>. But its Joint Committee on Taxation has projected that the tax on investment income will generate only <a href="https://www.jct.gov/publications.html?func=startdown&id=5053">$200 million</a> per year – hardly a book-balancing sum when the budget deficit is pushing <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/publication/55551">$1 trillion</a>.</p>
<p>Most of the schools that will pay the tax are in liberal strongholds. People like former President George W. Bush adviser <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/22/business/the-peril-of-taxing-elite-higher-education.html">N. Gregory Mankiw</a> have suggested that a Republican-controlled Congress may have wanted to tax the elite colleges and universities that it perceives as <a href="http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/11/the-republican-plan-is-the-opposite-of-tax-reform.html">overwhelmingly liberal</a>.</p>
<p>But an exemption from tax on investment income is only one of the <a href="https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-entities-are-tax-exempt">many governmental</a> subsidies that private colleges and universities receive. They enjoy a range of other <a href="https://theconversation.com/american-giving-lost-some-ground-in-2018-amid-tax-changes-and-stock-market-losses-118892">preferential treatment</a> – all because government believes that higher education does a lot of good. In my view, the new tax sends a message to wealthy schools about what is expected in return for these subsidies.</p>
<h2>Immunity for Berea College</h2>
<p>Perhaps the key to deciphering the message lies in the phrase “tuition-paying student.” There was bipartisan agreement that this language needed to be included so that <a href="https://www.berea.edu/admissions/academic-requirements/#1542730503284-bb1625a2-2536">Berea College in Kentucky</a> would not be taxed. Berea has an endowment of about $700,000 per student, well above the taxing trigger Congress set.</p>
<p>What’s so special about this small college? Its core mission is to serve “students of academic promise with limited financial means.” Berea charges no tuition and admits only academically promising, lower-income students – primarily from Appalachia. </p>
<p>The college fits precisely at the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/10/how-berea-college-makes-tuition-free-with-its-endowment/572644/">intersection of education and the American dream</a>: It prepares poor students to compete in the marketplace and thereby helps them climb the economic ladder. </p>
<p>Many of the schools that will pay the 1.4% tax on net investment income are in the group of institutions that <a href="https://blog.collegevine.com/a-guide-to-need-blind-schools-complete-list/">admit students without considering their ability to pay tuition</a> and <a href="https://blog.collegevine.com/schools-that-meet-100-percent-financial-need/">meet 100%</a> of a student’s demonstrated financial need. <a href="https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid">Harvard</a>, <a href="https://admission.princeton.edu/cost-aid/how-princetons-aid-program-works">Princeton</a> and more than a dozen <a href="https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/2018-09-18/18-schools-that-meet-full-financial-need-with-no-loans">other wealthy colleges</a> and universities point to these policies when defending the size of their endowments. They argue that their institutional wealth helps make these policies possible.</p>
<p>But research has demonstrated that elite colleges and universities are <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/2/28/14359140/chetty-friedman-college-mobility">not nearly as good as they should be</a> at getting poor students to apply. These schools also fail to create <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/03/privileged-poor-navigating-elite-university-life/585100/">environments in which students with limited means</a> feel that they belong, sometimes hindering academic success.</p>
<p>When Congress protected Berea, I believe it sent a signal. The real message behind this new measure is that the surest way for colleges and universities to hang onto their tax breaks is to figure out how to better serve poor students.</p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120063/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Waldeck does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The IRS estimates that up to 40 privately run schools may be affected by this measure in the 2017 tax reform package.Sarah Waldeck, Distinguished Professor of Law, Loyola University ChicagoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1023132018-09-06T16:34:11Z2018-09-06T16:34:11ZMIT and Harvard: when elite institutions open and hack knowledge<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233940/original/file-20180828-86120-7s349x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">MIT hackathon, 2014.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/50628274@N00/15303971768">Mason Marino, Che-Wei Wang, Andrew Whitacre / Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As researchers and/or entrepreneurs, we have been absorbing cultural knowledge of collaboration, entrepreneurship, co-worker and maker movements for a number of years. We often face and hear about how to become disruptive by two keywords: <em>opening</em> and <em>hacking</em>. Between July 25 and 28, 2018, we co-created a rich learning expedition organized by the <a href="https://collaborativespacesstudy.wordpress.com/">Research Group on Collaborative Spaces</a> (RGCS), at MIT and Harvard University, in Cambridge (Massachusetts). This alternative academic network focuses on topics about new work practices inspired by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_science">open science</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_science">citizen science</a> cultures.</p>
<p>The starting point of our learning expedition was our astonishment: How can elite institutions (in particular, MIT and Harvard University) and an elite territory originate key collaborative practices and ideology such as hacking, open knowledge and open innovation? How to combine search for excellence, global leadership and selectivity with horizontal, transgressive, underground cultures of hacking and opening knowledge? Our objective was to understand this paradox with a set of planned and improvised visits and meetings (see the <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2017/08/30/toward-more-integrative-research-practices-introducing-open-walked-event-based-experimentations/">OWEE protocol</a>) focused on MIT and Harvard University. Is it possible to be both conformist and transgressive?</p>
<p>We want first to share some astonishing discoveries before focusing on key moments and encounters we see as provisional answers to our initial question. We will thus not detail all trip and everything that happened but we want to share here some selected afterthoughts.</p>
<h2>Three striking practices at Harvard University and MIT</h2>
<p>We found three practices particularly striking both at MIT and Harvard University and their relationship with opening and hacking knowledge.</p>
<p>The first was observing how much students (undergraduate, graduate, master and PhD students) and their theses and projects were made visible and valuated by the institutions. Through this, we do not only mean rewarding them and evaluating them (e.g. with awards), but truly putting them at forefront of what the university is and does. At the <a href="https://mitmuseum.mit.edu/">MIT Museum</a>, we participated in the Idea Hub workshop named Hypercube, which was part of a master’s thesis from by the Media Lab. In many parts of MIT, students" work is exhibited, part of the storytelling or simply visible on or from the street.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233941/original/file-20180828-86120-1puv2o7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233941/original/file-20180828-86120-1puv2o7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233941/original/file-20180828-86120-1puv2o7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233941/original/file-20180828-86120-1puv2o7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233941/original/file-20180828-86120-1puv2o7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233941/original/file-20180828-86120-1puv2o7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233941/original/file-20180828-86120-1puv2o7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hypercube workshop.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Secondly, we were surprised that at a time of global tensions and an obsession with security, there was also a great openness in the semi-public and public spaces. It was easy to simply enter, meet people, ask questions, walk around, and have chance encounters. Even if a lot of doors inside were (hopefully) closed and secured, most places were truly open to the city, its movements, its events, its ideas. Literally, those two campuses are open to citizens.</p>
<p>In continuation to this, the third element we found surprising was serendipity. It felt to be a reality here we could almost touch. It was very easy to connect, move from one meeting to another, and collaborate. But here there was a surprise in the surprise: this has nothing to do with fashionable collaborative spaces nor with a particular urbanism. The <a href="https://wyss.harvard.edu/">Wyss Institute</a> we visited or the <a href="https://www.broadinstitute.org/">Broad Institute</a> do not appear at all as decompartmentalised, co-working-like or makerspace-like places. Their offices, meeting rooms and labs are extremely traditional (see pictures below). Nonetheless, collaborative practices occur. We were really surprised by how easy it was to meet and have chance encounters (e.g., with a person who collaborated to the vaccine against cancer).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233942/original/file-20180828-86144-xlqa8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233942/original/file-20180828-86144-xlqa8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=225&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233942/original/file-20180828-86144-xlqa8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=225&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233942/original/file-20180828-86144-xlqa8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=225&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233942/original/file-20180828-86144-xlqa8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233942/original/file-20180828-86144-xlqa8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233942/original/file-20180828-86144-xlqa8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Left: Lobby of the Wyss Institute at Harvard. Right: Entrance of the Broad Institute at MIT.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Five key moments in our exploration of opening and hacking knowledge</h2>
<p><em>To introduce and shed light on the identified paradox, we would like here to share five relevant moments of the learning expedition.</em></p>
<p><strong>A transgressive interdisciplinary place: the Wyss Institute at Harvard</strong></p>
<p>The first encounter we would like to communicate happened at the Wyss Institute “for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University”. This interdisciplinary place is inspired by nature. It uses biological principles or metaphors to innovate in the health sector. Our meeting took place in the morning of day two of our learning expedition. Two researchers, among whom the founding director of the Institute <a href="https://wyss.harvard.edu/team/executive-team/donald-ingber/">Donald Ingber</a>, presented us the institute, its activities and organisation. The institute adventure started right after the 2008 financial crisis with a $125 million donation. Being both inside and outside of Harvard is obviously an interstitiality that fosters innovative collaborations. Can a university accept and host such transgressive projects? Would it be possible to host all those research activities inside a traditional department? Specificities of the organization seem to be based on autonomy, trust and close work with practitioners. Elsewhere, this would probably mean being on one personal academic territory or another. Wyss Institute appears to be a more neutral zone.</p>
<p><strong>MIT tour storytelling: all about hacking culture</strong></p>
<p>The second moment we would like to point out is the official campus tour of MIT (we also did Harvard official campus tour). <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326415466_At_the_intersection_of_materiality_organizational_legitimacy_and_institutional_logics_A_study_of_campus_tours?_iepl%5BgeneralViewId%5D=sCaFedn0NvcsBtUxRfF33sI2OMzPOqSv7VP0&_iepl%5Bcontexts%5D%5B0%5D=searchReact&_iepl%5BviewId%5D=vC9RKru8OjCUmd6ulDp57fpEUhfeMFtKGGk3&_iepl%5BsearchType%5D=publication&_iepl%5Bdata%5D%5BcountLessEqual20%5D=1&_iepl%5Bdata%5D%5BinteractedWithPosition1%5D=1&_iepl%5Bdata%5D%5BwithEnrichment%5D=1&_iepl%5Bposition%5D=1&_iepl%5BrgKey%5D=PB%3A326415466&_iepl%5BtargetEntityId%5D=PB%3A326415466&_iepl%5BinteractionType%5D=publicationTitle">Tours are key practices in the life of American universities.</a> The meeting point of MIT campus tour was at the entrance of the main building with the famous dome. Our guide was a young undergraduate interested in Science and Technology Studies (STS). Extremely mature, with an already assured sense of public speaking, she produced the story-telling of the tour with a lot of practical, scientific and historical details. We learned everything about the facilities, accommodation, recruitment, history, teaching and research activities of MIT. But most of all, we learned about MIT culture. Two enlightened moments of the tour were focused on hack culture of MIT and they happened to be the two key parts of tour: a stop in front of the most emblematic place and the last stop in front of the iconic hacked police car. In both cases, she put the stress on the importance of small transgressions inside MIT community, impertinence and sense of humour embodied by hacks and hacking culture (see pictures below). We were particularly surprised to see and hear all these official narratives precisely about the topic of our learning expedition. This was beyond our expectations.</p>
<p><strong>An intriguing iconic hackers space in the middle of the night</strong></p>
<p>The third moment we would like to share is our chance to visit a hackerspace. At the end of day 2, we were looking for Tech Model Railroad Club (<a href="https://www.wired.com/2014/11/the-tech-model-railroad-club/">TMRC</a>), an iconic, mythological place in hackers" history, and incidentally, makers" history. After three wrong places, we finally found the door and building in late evening. But it was closed. We did not see any way to come or call inside and we were waiting seated outside, waiting for someone entering or leaving the place. One of us went on the other side of the street and noticed something that looked like a makerspace with bikes and strange objects suspended in a big room. We went on the other side and knocked at a grimy window through which we guessed the presence of people inside. This was a lovely moment (see pictures below). Six makers (four men and two women) were working on a prototype of a small electric bike for an event the next day. We had a spontaneous conversation with one of them about the place, what it does, how membership was granted, how it was related to MIT teaching. The atmosphere was cool, warm and open. We came from nowhere, it was the evening and the street was already dark, but we felt really welcome. Indeed, TMRC was in the room next to the makerspace, so we also took time looking at it.</p>
<p><strong>GAFAM unconventional open-office spaces</strong></p>
<p>The fourth moment happened on the third day. We wanted to look also at more entrepreneurial and independent places. After visiting <a href="https://cic.com/">Cambridge Innovation Centre</a> (CIC) and before <a href="https://www.wework.com/">WeWork</a> office spaces, we went to a GAFAM (fantasy name) office we spotted the day before, walking down the street. After an extended discussion at the reception desk, we didn’t manage to get in touch with anyone and were close to simply leaving when an employee left the building by the other entrance. He probably heard us speaking French and stopped. We asked him if he was part of the company, one thing to led another, and he soon invited us to visit their offices the next day. As we agreed to during the registration process, we cannot explain here what we saw, but again, we were surprised by the fluidity of everything here. Moving from a dream to a concrete possibility.</p>
<p><strong>A makerspace for social inclusion and innovation: D-Lab</strong></p>
<p>The last and fifth moment was the visit of <a href="https://d-lab.mit.edu/about">D-Lab</a>. This unit is about social inclusion and social innovation. The main idea of the projects they work on is to co-produce with worldwide communities tools they need. Numerous accomplishment of the place were exhibited in the corridor: corn seller, mechanical washing machine, water treatment system… All largely based on material and handed-gestures. Our guide, who accepted to lead the visit just for us, deepened the story-telling of the projects and gave us opportunity to touch and to watch their experimentations in action. We were again surprised by the place’s openness. Everything was done to perform and materialise local activities for visitors. The inside was turned toward visitors. Because of another appointment, he trusted us to finish the tour alone and take a few pictures. Even the makerspace room was open to public, with simply a yellow line on the ground that needed to not be crossed for security reasons.</p>
<h2>From encounters to learning: what did we bring back from Cambridge?</h2>
<p>What about the initial paradox? Far from a barrier, the tension we stressed appear as a driver, an energy for the place. MIT and Harvard launch standards they both maintain and transgress in a polite, transparent, community-grounded way. Hacking alone in the dark, just for oneself is not enough. Community and society feedbacks are always expected. All campus and territory is a powerful storytelling machine. All world of worldwide science, technique and entrepreneurship is expected to be at MIT and Harvard. And in this summer we can testify that we experienced it crossing MIT campus and walking on Harvard campus. We saw big groups of children and teenagers coming to dream about MIT and Harvard. We ourselves dreamt of duplicating this tremendous spirit in our own institutions.</p>
<p>So, what will be our memory of this learning expedition in which two-thirds of the people and places we visited were improvised (see the <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2017/08/30/toward-more-integrative-research-practices-introducing-open-walked-event-based-experimentations/">OWEE protocol</a>)? A big machine made to make one’s eyes shine. A funny, energetic, largely outdoor, and beyond any walls place likely to make dream any brilliant teenager and researcher who do want to participate to create a brave new world.</p>
<p>We thank all of our guides who opened their doors to us and answered our questions with passion and kindness. And we hope that might lead to cross-Atlantic open collaboration.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102313/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aurore Dandoy is coordinator of the academic network and think tank RGCS (<a href="https://collaborativespacesstudy.wordpress.com/">https://collaborativespacesstudy.wordpress.com/</a>).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>François-Xavier de Vaujany is president of the academic network and think tank RGCS (<a href="https://collaborativespacesstudy.wordpress.com/">https://collaborativespacesstudy.wordpress.com/</a>). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Annie Passalacqua ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>How can elite institutions and an elite territory originate key collaborative practices such as hacking, open knowledge and open innovation? We found out during a recent visit.Aurore Dandoy, Assistant researcher, Université Paris Dauphine – PSLAnnie Passalacqua, Business Development Strategist, HEC MontréalFrançois-Xavier de Vaujany, Professeur, PSL-Université Paris-Dauphine (DRM), Université Paris Dauphine – PSLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/795692017-11-01T10:14:39Z2017-11-01T10:14:39ZImagining the ‘California Dream’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178291/original/file-20170714-7354-ta5io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Is the California Dream still alive and well?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/vintage-california-view-oil-painting-526016404?src=oiGDFrNPr3v9ETEZq1Km2w-1-0">Ivan Aleshin/shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Who gave the world the idea of the California Dream? </p>
<p>One way to answer this question is: “Who didn’t?” Millions of people today and in the past imagined California before ever going there – or without ever going there at all. Their collective vision of this place, what it means and how it might make, or remake, those who come here is one way to think about the California Dream, writ large.</p>
<p>But there’s also a person, a single thinker, in another answer to this question. </p>
<p>Kevin Starr, the prolific historian of California, died in January 2017. His passing took from the Golden State its most important scholarly interpreter and the one person most closely identified with chronicling the California Dream as a dynamic vision of a place and its possibilities. Across 40 years, Starr built a body of published work that put him in the most distinguished company of California commentators: <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/488109">Carey McWilliams</a> and <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/291675">Joan Didion</a> in the 20th century; <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/882088301">Richard Henry Dana</a>, <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/223807026">Mark Twain</a> and <a href="https://archive.org/details/bancrofthistcal01bancroft">H.H. Bancroft</a> in the 19th.</p>
<p>The loss feels especially poignant, even raw, just now. With California poised to flex more of its considerable clout across many stages, largely in antagonistic environmental, cultural and legislative response to the current presidential administration, it would be comforting to have Kevin Starr’s booming voice and clever opinions as narration and context to what is happening out here on the West Coast.</p>
<h2>West to East and back</h2>
<p>Born and raised in San Francisco in hardscrabble circumstances, Kevin Starr spent time as a boy in a Catholic orphanage, went to college at the Jesuit-led University of San Francisco and joined the Army. He then went to Harvard in the mid-1960s and ran headlong into American civilization. That meant the constellation of brilliant Harvard humanists shaping understanding of American intellectual and cultural history in books still consulted, and it meant steeping in the hothouse of Ivy League presumptions about just where American civilization existed and where it surely did not. Boston was in, of course, and so was Philadelphia. New York? Maybe. New Haven counted for something. </p>
<p>“I am going to write a dissertation on the West,” I said once to one of my own Ivy League historian mentors, who responded with an immediate and knee-jerk “West of what?” I went on to study the West, and have done so for the last 30 years. Over this entire time, I was fortunate to count Kevin Starr as mentor, friend and colleague. </p>
<h2>Inviting scholarly scrutiny</h2>
<p>Starr loved his time at Harvard. He marinated in the seminars and in the libraries. He felt at home. The old-school courtliness of Harvard matched his own bearing and respect for institutions. He also felt very much a Californian, and he chose to bring his home state to scholarly scrutiny. Starr wrote a doctoral thesis under the supervision of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/03/arts/alan-heimert-70-professor-and-expert-on-early-america.html">Alan Heimert</a>, the brilliant scholar of 18th-century American religion who had just brought out his masterpiece, <a href="http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=acls;idno=heb01364">“Religion and the American Mind: From the Great Awakening to the Revolution</a>,” on the religious enthusiasms of pre-Revolutionary America. Under Heimert’s close mentoring – they were only about a decade apart in age – Starr wrote on a Great Awakening of a different sort: California’s sudden and imaginative hold on the American psyche. The thesis became <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/americans-and-the-california-dream-1850-1915-9780195042337?lang=en&cc=us">“Americans and the California Dream, 1850-1915</a>,” which Oxford University Press brought out in the early 1970s. </p>
<p>In one big book, Starr made the California Dream mean and stand for so much more than the mid-19th-century search for gold nuggets in Sierra streams and rivers. The dream took that adventure in, to be sure, but Starr expanded our understanding of it well beyond the expectations of so many inexperienced miners trying their luck. Though initially conceived as a one-off monograph, the book launched an intellectual pilgrimage sparked from a deceptively simple query. What is the meaning – and the condition – of the “California Dream” through time? </p>
<h2>A West Coast civilization</h2>
<p>Each of the <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=Kevin+Starr+Dream&qt=results_page">more than half-dozen books that followed</a> is another illumination of the history and culture of California. Starr broke through much of the nonsense of California studies – the “Old West” school of daring days of yesteryear – by taking the place, its people and the ideas they generated seriously. </p>
<p>Each successive volume is pinned, across eras or single decades, to the state and well-being of the oft-elusive California Dream at this or that moment in time. A redemptive California, a West Coast civilization made of the best hopes and dreams of the young nation, embodies the first book, and this idea animates the full series. Californians, Starr insists, can rise above the worst impulses of greed, violence or racism and, in so doing, render the state exemplary to the rest of the nation and the world. Starr knew his William Bradford, he of the obligations of an American “city on a hill”; he knew his Alan Heimert; he knew his <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674261556">Perry Miller</a>, another of Harvard’s brilliant scholars of American mission and destiny. He brought them all with him to California. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186677/original/file-20170919-22657-1my2iaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186677/original/file-20170919-22657-1my2iaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186677/original/file-20170919-22657-1my2iaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186677/original/file-20170919-22657-1my2iaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186677/original/file-20170919-22657-1my2iaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186677/original/file-20170919-22657-1my2iaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186677/original/file-20170919-22657-1my2iaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, right, and Kevin Starr unveil the California Quarter in 2004.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Stacked end to end, Starr’s dream series does not describe a straight line of hope or success. California is not so regenerative a place as to avoid the worst of human impulses and actions, and Starr knew that – despite his impressively irrepressible hopes that it might. California is always more parts hope than promise in Starr’s reckoning, and it has ever been thus. Woven into his lofty prose are indications of darkness and disappointment. “Old in error,” he noted as he closed the best of his books on this place, “California remains an American hope.” </p>
<p>What he did brilliantly was to temper faith with realism, realism with faith. That trait is what makes his absence especially painful right now. California is resurgent these days, even in its many imperfections. Feisty, even smug about its considerable power, the state – its political leadership and wide swaths of its population – is <a href="http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-ed-california-fights-back/">boldly going against the national zeitgeist</a> in such arenas as environmental, social and immigration policies and perspectives. Given his erudition and the bully pulpit he so enjoyed opining from, Kevin Starr would have much to say about how the nation might not only learn from California examples, but how, as it has for two centuries, California might take the nation forward and not back.</p>
<p><em>Read more about the past and future of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/california-dream-39642">California Dream</a>. This series is published in collaboration with KQED.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79569/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>William Deverell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Millions of people have imagined California, but only one man was its historian.William Deverell, Professor of History, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/813062017-08-21T19:03:04Z2017-08-21T19:03:04ZSouth African universities need to rethink how they invest their millions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182109/original/file-20170815-26751-103xl1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Rhodes Must Fall movement accused the University of Cape Town of having blood on its hands for investing in the mining company Lonmin. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ian Barbour/flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Universities are no longer simply institutions of learning. Over the past 50 years, they have also become important players in global financial markets. They have become institutional investors. </p>
<p>Universities have to decide what to do with the pension fund contributions of their staff. They also receive large monetary donations from alumni and other private donors. This money – millions, sometimes billions of dollars – goes into university investment funds. These can be managed internally or delegated to investment managers. </p>
<p>Harvard University in the US has the biggest endowment fund in the world with <a href="https://thebestschools.org/features/richest-universities-endowments-generosity-research/">USD$32.7 billion</a>, while university endowment funds in the UK hold between <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/analysis-which-university-has-the-deepest-pockets/163860.article">£2.5 million and £1 billion</a>. Pension funds in the US and UK are even more substantial. For example, the California University pension fund boasts more than <a href="https://www.towerswatson.com/en-GB/Insights/IC-Types/Survey-Research-Results/2015/09/The-worlds-300-largest-pension-funds-year-end-2014">USD$70 billion</a>.</p>
<p>University funds in southern Africa are much smaller, but some are still significant. According to our calculations, the universities with the largest endowments are all in South Africa, with the top five representing a little less than USD$1 billion collectively. The pension funds of the top 10 universities in the region come to around USD$3,6 billion. </p>
<p>The question of how universities choose to invest all this money is increasingly coming under scrutiny. In the <a href="https://gofossilfree.org/commitments/">US, Europe, Australia and New Zealand</a> universities’ pension funds and endowment funds are starting to align their investment portfolios with the social concerns of their students and staff.</p>
<h2>Putting assets to work for a better world</h2>
<p>In the 1970s student and staff activists at US universities put serious pressure on their managements to stop investing in companies involved in the Vietnam war or, later on, in apartheid South Africa.</p>
<p>Today climate change is the issue that’s increasingly dominating the activist agenda on university campuses. Since 2012, <a href="https://350.org/">350.org</a>, a climate change activist movement, has been pushing for total <a href="https://fossilfreesa.org.za/">disinvestment from fossil fuels</a> – with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/22/leonardo-dicaprio-joins-26tn-fossil-fuel-divestment-movement">some significant victories </a>. Student activists in the US have also called successfully for disinvestment from <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-uc-divestment-prisons-20151226-story.html">prisons</a>.</p>
<p>In 2005 the UN established a responsible investment coalition called the <a href="https://www.unpri.org/">Principles for Responsible Investment</a>. Signatories pledge to invest according to <a href="https://www.unpri.org/about">six principles</a>, aiming to achieve long-term sustainable investment returns and benefits for society as a whole. So far over 1000 investment managers <a href="https://www.unpri.org/directory/">have signed up</a>, making it the biggest coalition of this kind in the world.</p>
<p>A few academic institutions have signed up too. Harvard’s USD$35 billion <a href="http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2014/04/harvard-to-sign-on-to-united-nations-supported-principles-for-responsible-investment/">University Endowment Scheme</a> joined in 2014. And at least four retirement funds, endowment funds or foundations linked to tertiary education institutions in the US and Europe <a href="https://www.unpri.org/signatory-directory/?co=&sta=3%2C5&sti=&sts=&sa=join&si=join&ss=join&q=">signed up</a> this year. As was the case with Harvard, this has often happened under pressure from student activists. </p>
<h2>Progress at South African universities</h2>
<p>So far no universities in South Africa or Africa have signed the principles. But there are signs that the idea of responsible investment is starting to gain some traction – especially within the heightened activism at South African universities.</p>
<p>For example, the <a href="https://fossilfreesa.org.za/">South Africa fossil free disinvestment campaign</a> has made significant progress at the University of Cape Town. After a four-year campaign, the university’s convocation of alumni and students this year voted to <a href="https://fossilfreesa.org.za/2017/03/02/coal-oil-and-gas-investments-to-be-phased-out-uct-convocation-votes/">support a motion</a> to disinvest from fossil fuels.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/03/28/395608605/why-south-african-students-say-the-statue-of-rhodes-must-fall">Rhodes Must Fall</a> movement also brought the issue of workers’ exploitation into focus. It accused leadership at the University of Cape Town of having <a href="http://www.groundup.org.za/article/rhodes-must-fall-uct-lonmin-and-pension-funds_3263/">blood on its hands</a> for being invested in Lonmin at the time of the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/marikana-massacre-16-august-2012">Marikana Massacre</a>.</p>
<p>This was closely followed by nationwide <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2016-10-10-feesmustfall-the-eye-of-the-hurricane/#.WZLXtoSGOM8">Fees Must Fall</a> protests. Protesters called on government to provide free education for all. In doing so, they challenged the idea that universities should operate as businesses according to free market principles. They also challenged the role of the university in society by calling for decolonisation of the institution.</p>
<p>Since then the University of Cape Town’s council <a href="https://fossilfreesa.org.za/about/uct-campaign-timeline/">has agreed</a> to design a responsible investment policy. This makes it the first known Southern African university to do so.</p>
<h2>Paradigm shift</h2>
<p>For this movement to truly take off in Southern Africa’s universities, there needs to be a paradigm shift at the level of university management.</p>
<p>As stressed by the <a href="http://www.ucop.edu/investment-office/_files/sustainable-investment-framework.pdf">University of California</a>, becoming a responsible investor is not about giving up on financial returns. Rather it’s about finding ways to achieve these while addressing societal challenges and opportunities. A responsible investor can decide to disinvest from environmentally and socially harmful sectors, but also to support new investment opportunities such as renewable energy. </p>
<p>An institutional investor that takes its responsibility towards future generations seriously should reflect on its values to take informed decisions on how financial returns can be better achieved. Fortunately it’s becoming easier to do this thanks to a surge in innovative investment strategies and funds that seek to achieve both good financial returns and positive social impacts. The <a href="http://www.gsb.uct.ac.za/impact-barometer">African Investing for Impact Barometer</a> – a research project that we run for the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the UCT Graduate School of Business – charts the rise of opportunities like this and shows that impact investing on the continent is booming. </p>
<p>This trend, combined with activism, can persuade universities to become more proactive, creative and responsible investors. </p>
<p>Student and staff activists have clearly begun to interrogate the links between social and environmental issues and their universities’ investment choices. For university management, these questions present an opportunity to think about how their investment portfolios can be used address the social concerns of their students and staff. Universities – being both institutional investors and places of education – can ultimately find improved investment solutions that create a more sustainable future for the generations of learners to come.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81306/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephanie Giamporcaro receives funding from Government of Flanders</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Xolisa Dhlamini is on a Bertha Scholarship for his PhD Studies funded by the Bertha Centre, a specialized unit within the UCT Graduate School of Business. Xolisa volunteers as a member of the investment subcommittee at the Institute for Retirement Funds Africa (IRFA). </span></em></p>Universities have the power to transform society not just through how they operate their campuses, but also through how they invest their endowments and pensions funds.Stephanie Giamporcaro, Associate professor UCT GSB / Readership Responsible and Sustainable Finance NTU NBS, University of Cape TownXolisa Dhlamini, PhD Candidate and Bertha Scholar and Researcher, UCT Graduate School of Business, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/821312017-08-07T02:24:39Z2017-08-07T02:24:39ZThe missing elements in the debate about affirmative action and Asian-American students<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181076/original/file-20170804-23934-u3juga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protest against racial quotas during a rally outside the Supreme Court in Washington in 2015.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Media reports have stated that the Justice Department under President Donald Trump is planning to investigate <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/may/16/asian-american-groups-file-racial-quotas-complaint-against-harvard-university">a complaint of discrimination</a> against Harvard University brought by a coalition of Asian-American groups. </p>
<p>From our perspective as scholars who study affirmative action, race and diversity in higher education, the complaint reflects a <a href="http://www.chronicle.com/article/What-You-Need-to-Know-About/240820">flawed understanding</a> of race-conscious education policies like affirmative action.</p>
<p>How do affirmative action policies work, and whom do they affect? </p>
<h2>Fisher case</h2>
<p>Let’s first look at the legal wrangling that has been going on for some time on this issue. Since the 1978 <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1979/76-811">Regents of the University of California v. Bakke</a> case, the Supreme Court consistently has affirmed that under certain conditions (e.g., no numerical set-asides or quotas, diversity is a compelling interest) it is constitutional for institutions of higher education to consider a student’s race in admissions processes. </p>
<p>Most recently, in a landmark judgment on June 23, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court <a href="https://theconversation.com/after-supreme-courts-fisher-decision-what-we-need-to-know-about-considering-race-in-admissions-59784">upheld the constitutionality of race-conscious affirmative action</a> in university admissions in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-crucial-texas-case-on-race-considerations-in-college-admissions-44117">Abigail Fisher</a> case.</p>
<p>Fisher, a white woman, had sued the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) for its race-conscious admissions policy after she was denied admission. She had argued that the university violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.</p>
<p>Supporters of race-conscious admissions programs were understandably gratified. But as the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/us/affirmative-action-battle-has-a-new-focus-asian-americans.html?emc=edit_tnt_20170803&nlid=78846674&tntemail0=y">recent discussion about affirmative action demonstrates,</a> the case did not resolve the larger moral and political disagreements over affirmative action.</p>
<p>Indeed, over the last 40 years, affirmative action opponents have repeatedly strategized anew after important Supreme Court decisions in favor of affirmative action.</p>
<h2>Harvard lawsuit</h2>
<p>It is perhaps no coincidence that Edward Blum, Abigail Fisher’s adviser and the executive director of the <a href="https://www.projectonfairrepresentation.org/">Project on Fair Representation</a>, is the one leading the most recent court challenge to affirmative action, the lawsuit challenging Harvard University’s race-conscious admissions policy. What is different about the <a href="http://studentsforfairadmissions.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/SFFA-v.-Harvard-Complaint.pdf">Harvard lawsuit</a> is that the lead plaintiff in the case is not a white student but Asian-American. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130611/original/image-20160714-23365-137rvqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130611/original/image-20160714-23365-137rvqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130611/original/image-20160714-23365-137rvqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130611/original/image-20160714-23365-137rvqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130611/original/image-20160714-23365-137rvqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130611/original/image-20160714-23365-137rvqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130611/original/image-20160714-23365-137rvqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Asian-Americans participate in an Advancing Justice conference.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/justiceconf/15364290448/in/photolist-ppG1gs-ppEvQx-ppKxNw-pE4tMS-fjpnxG-oKkpH2-oKioP3-ppHAfX-ppDjC4-pG9Svz-pG8YoZ-ppG1qf-pE4uUm-pE3uKL-oKmiSx-pG8XtT-ppGYWb-fjaaza-oKioG9-pFU68K-ppKtHh-ppJvdo-pFVaor-pGefe3-ppJxjY-fjoUu7-pE4oZA-ppHDCP-oKiruy-ppJowh-ppHBEa-ppEuFD-ppGTMy-pE3vFd-fjpa2y-pE4uiw-oKmmzg-pE4usQ-oKik3f-ppKtKG-oKisgd-pE3pYb-pE4qTf-pGeeEs-pFVbe4-pE4px9-ppKvjd-pGefJ1-pGedjw-ppGUdU">Advancing Justice Conference</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“<a href="https://studentsforfairadmissions.org/">Students for Fair Admissions</a>,” an arm of the Project on Fair Representation, filed a suit against Harvard College on Nov. 17, 2014, on behalf of a Chinese-American applicant who had been rejected from Harvard. The lawsuit charges that the university’s admissions policy violates <a href="http://www.hhs.gov/civil-rights/for-individuals/race/index.html">Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964</a>, which bars federally funded entities from discriminating based on race or ethnicity.</p>
<h2>How it started</h2>
<p>This controversy over how Asian-Americans are being treated in selective college admission was jump-started in 2005, when sociologists <a href="https://www.princeton.edu/%7Etje/">Thomas Espenshade</a> and <a href="http://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/cchung/files/chang_y_chung.pdf">Chang Chung</a> published <a href="https://www.princeton.edu/%7Etje/files/webOpportunity%20Cost%20of%20Admission%20Preferences%20Espenshade%20Chung%20June%202005.pdf">findings</a> from their study on the effects of affirmative action bans on the racial and ethnic composition of student bodies at selective colleges and universities. </p>
<p>Espenshade and Chung found that if affirmative action were to be eliminated, the acceptance rates for black and <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/12/08/students-adopt-gender-nonspecific-term-latinx-be-more-inclusive">Latino</a> applicants would likely decrease substantially, while the acceptance rate for white applicants would increase slightly. </p>
<p>But more than that, what they noted was that the acceptance rate for Asian-American applicants would increase the most by far. </p>
<p>As the researchers explained, Asian-American students “would occupy four out of every five seats created by accepting fewer African-American and Hispanic students.” </p>
<p>Such research has been cited to support claims of admissions discrimination against Asian-Americans. </p>
<p>In the complaint against Harvard, Espenshade’s research was cited as evidence of discrimination against Asian-Americans. Specifically, the lawsuit cited research from 2009 in which Espenshade, this time with co-author <a href="https://www.rti.org/expert/alexandria-walton-radford">Alexandria Radford,</a> <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9072.html">found</a> that Asian-American applicants accepted at selective colleges had higher standardized test scores, on average, than other accepted students. </p>
<p>These findings, especially that Asian-American applicants seem to need a higher SAT score than white applicants or other applicants of color in order to be admitted to a selective college, are being used as proof that elite institutions like Harvard are discriminating against Asian-Americans in their admissions processes. </p>
<h2>The picture is more complicated</h2>
<p>Selective admissions processes are much more complicated than SAT score data can show. There are many factors that are taken into consideration for college admission. </p>
<p>For example, in the “holistic” admissions processes endorsed by the Supreme Court in Grutter v. Bollinger, standardized text scores are not the only, or even the main, criterion for admission. <a href="https://www.aamc.org/initiatives/holisticreview/about/">“Holistic” review</a> takes many relevant factors into account, including academic achievement, of course, but also factors such as a commitment to public service, overcoming difficult life circumstances, achievements in the arts or athletics, or leadership qualities.</p>
<p>So, why would the plaintiff in the Harvard case conclude that the disparities in SAT scores shown by Espenshade and Radford necessarily indicate that Asian-American applicants are being harmed by race-conscious affirmative action? </p>
<p>In fact, legal scholar <a href="http://apahenational.org/?page_id=402">William Kidder</a> <a href="http://media.asian-nation.org/Kidder-Negative-Action.pdf">has argued</a> that the way Espenshade and Radford’s findings have been interpreted by affirmative action opponents is not accurate. </p>
<p>Based on his analysis, Kidder concluded, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Exaggerated claims about the benefits for APAs [Asian Pacific Americans] of ending affirmative action foster a divisive public discourse in which APAs are falsely portrayed as natural adversaries of affirmative action and the interests of African American and Latinos in particular.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In our opinion as well, focusing on simplistic ideas about standardized tests as the primary evidence for who “deserves” to be admitted to elite institutions like Harvard may serve to stir up resentment among accomplished applicants who get rejected.</p>
<h2>Asian-Americans are not a monolithic group</h2>
<p>As the “Harvard Not Fair” website and accompanying lawsuit demonstrate, Espenshade’s findings have been used to fuel a <a href="http://www.jaconlinejournal.com/archives/vol26.1-2/banning-politics.pdf">politics of resentment</a> among rejected Asian-American applicants.</p>
<p>When speaking with reporters, Espenshade himself has acknowledged that <a href="http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/5/16/complaint-federal-harvard-admissions/">his data are incomplete</a> – given that colleges take myriad factors into account in admissions decisions – and that his findings have been overinterpreted and actually <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/11/03/elite">do not prove</a> that colleges discriminate against Asian-American applicants. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130456/original/image-20160713-12389-1m8kj97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130456/original/image-20160713-12389-1m8kj97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130456/original/image-20160713-12389-1m8kj97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130456/original/image-20160713-12389-1m8kj97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130456/original/image-20160713-12389-1m8kj97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130456/original/image-20160713-12389-1m8kj97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130456/original/image-20160713-12389-1m8kj97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Are Asian-American students a monolithic group?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/brainchildvn/3005463222/in/photolist-5zzMvq-4E3x4k-gZVoyq-6fVSsc-hyi8DC-8x8MvT-dkX8eD-4E3x56-dkY496-dkX8gg-4Tenr6-gZWMk2-5zziDu-4TAeVw-5zzTqq-5zzX5C-gZWopW-5zzZ8G-5zviMz-4VFbik-bDyRg3-5zzbuG-5zzRBs-dkX8ec-r4DrgY-4WEYRg-5zzUpu-5zzhcm-5zvyzF-5zvdua-9wAUG5-5zvhUB-dkY4de-5zvpVg-5zuXBV-5zvQtz-5zv7a2-5zvoRZ-5zAbwj-5zvAs2-aEfpT3-reqP2q-foRaAe-5zvYLt-5zzY33-5zA4fL-5zv12i-5zvxrk-5zvagc-5zuUp2">Charlie Nguyen</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In addition, in using <a href="http://harvardnotfair.org/">images of Asian-American students</a> to recruit complainants against Harvard and other highly selective institutions of higher education, the Project on Fair Representation <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/chains-of-babylon">relies on the idea</a> that Asian-Americans comprise a monolithic group. In fact, the term “Asian-American” refers to a <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-there-an-asian-disadvantage-in-higher-ed-44070">diversity of Asian ethnicities</a> in the United States, whose educational opportunities and achievements vary widely. </p>
<p>The 2010 census question on race included check boxes for six Asian groups – Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese – along with a box for “Other Asian,” with a prompt for detailed responses such as “Hmong, Laotian, Thai, Pakistani, Cambodian, and so on.” </p>
<p>Furthermore, by casting plaintiffs as meritorious and deserving of a spot at an elite university, it also conveys the <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10134.html">stereotypical received wisdom about Asian-American “model” students</a> who are wronged by race-conscious affirmative action programs. </p>
<p>In actuality, many <a href="https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/professionals/asian-americans-and-pacific-islanders-facts-not-fiction.pdf">Asian-Americans benefit from affirmative action policies</a>.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article originally published on July 14, 2016.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82131/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christina Paguyo receives funding from the National Science Foundation and in the past has received funding from the American Educational Research Association. She is a owner and consultant for Data Luminaries, LLC. She is affiliated with the Democratic Party and is a member of the American Educational Research Association, American Evaluation Association, American Society for Engineering Education, and the Association for the Study of Higher Education. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daryl Maeda and Michele S. Moses do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Scholars argue that the complaint of bias against Harvard reflects a flawed understanding of affirmative action policies.Michele S. Moses, Professor of Educational Foundations, Policy, and Practice, University of Colorado BoulderChristina Paguyo, Post Doctoral Fellow, Colorado State UniversityDaryl Maeda, Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies, University of Colorado BoulderLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/802562017-08-02T01:20:25Z2017-08-02T01:20:25ZThis math puzzle will help you plan your next party<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179645/original/file-20170725-30152-1sg6hk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mapping connections at your next shindig.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/unclibraries_commons/23109914111/in/photolist-Bd9mk2-4id8ef-9b3RB-7qFUhu-8ETfQv-kUVHxH-5ENkBs-4aWEEf-kUVF2v-kYPf5X-kYPdvK-8Y91FT-pKLRm-4aSCNx-bt2FqY-kYQmxU-5NXrDW-5QKVRi-668pD-iDChA-bS7NkP-7Qm21B-axnNjC-9fw57s-4jAkj1-kYQAZQ-aigLLX-8nwh4d-wrhJb-kYPqdv-6YW7NP-aigLEx-6Z199Q-ixZBQg-HyAgcu-kYPqZR-9v1r5W-ddzLaV-derxa6-5eiWhs-9cD5ss-auQjZo-cBiqX-9X9PGL-3JChmw-89RRvG-51s3TR-9P7eTG-7jhz8Z-4aSD1t/">unclibraries_commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Let’s say you’re planning your next party and agonizing over the guest list. To whom should you send invitations? What combination of friends and strangers is the right mix? </p>
<p>It turns out mathematicians have been working on a version of this problem for nearly a century. Depending on what you want, the answer can be complicated. </p>
<p>Our book, <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10314.html">“The Fascinating World of Graph Theory</a>,” explores puzzles like these and shows how they can be solved through graphs. A question like this one might seem small, but it’s a beautiful demonstration of how graphs can be used to solve mathematical problems in such diverse fields as the sciences, communication and society.</p>
<h1>A puzzle is born</h1>
<p>While it’s well-known that Harvard is one of the top academic universities in the country, you might be surprised to learn that there was a time when Harvard had one of the nation’s best football teams. But in 1931, led by <a href="http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1971/3/12/barry-wood-31-was-star-for/">All–American quarterback Barry Wood</a>, such was the case. </p>
<p>That season Harvard played Army. At halftime, unexpectedly, Army led Harvard 13–0. Clearly upset, Harvard’s president told Army’s commandant of cadets that while Army may be better than Harvard in football, Harvard was superior in a more scholarly competition.</p>
<p>Though Harvard came back to defeat Army 14-13, the commandant accepted the challenge to compete against Harvard in something more scholarly. It was agreed that the two would compete – in mathematics. This led to Army and Harvard selecting mathematics teams; the showdown occurred in West Point in 1933. To Harvard’s surprise, Army won. </p>
<p>The Harvard–Army competition eventually led to an annual mathematics competition for undergraduates in 1938, called the <a href="https://www.maa.org/programs/maa-awards/putnam-competition-individual-and-team-winners">Putnam exam</a>, named for William Lowell Putnam, a relative of Harvard’s president. This exam was designed to stimulate a healthy rivalry in mathematics in the United States and Canada. Over the years and continuing to this day, this exam has contained many interesting and often challenging problems – including the one we describe above.</p>
<h1>Red and blue lines</h1>
<p>The 1953 exam contained the following problem (reworded a bit): There are six points in the plane. Every point is connected to every other point by a line that’s either blue or red. Show that there are three of these points between which only lines of the same color are drawn. </p>
<p>In math, if there is a collection of points with lines drawn between some pairs of points, that structure is called a graph. The study of these graphs is called graph theory. In graph theory, however, the points are called vertices and the lines are called edges.</p>
<p>Graphs can be used to represent a wide variety of situations. For example, in this Putnam problem, a point can represent a person, a red line can mean the people are friends and a blue line means that they are strangers.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179639/original/file-20170725-30149-in14d6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179639/original/file-20170725-30149-in14d6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179639/original/file-20170725-30149-in14d6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=266&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179639/original/file-20170725-30149-in14d6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=266&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179639/original/file-20170725-30149-in14d6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=266&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179639/original/file-20170725-30149-in14d6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179639/original/file-20170725-30149-in14d6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179639/original/file-20170725-30149-in14d6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Show that there are three points connected by lines of the same color.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gary Chartrand</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For example, let’s call the points A, B, C, D, E, F and select one of them, say A. Of the five lines drawn from A to the other five points, there must be three lines of the same color. </p>
<p>Say the lines from A to B, C, D are all red. If a line between any two of B, C, D is red, then there are three points with only red lines between them. If no line between any two of B, C, D is red, then they are all blue.</p>
<p>What if there were only five points? There may not be three points where all lines between them are colored the same. For example, the lines A–B, B–C, C–D, D–E, E–A may be red, with the others blue.</p>
<p>From what we saw, then, the smallest number of people who can be invited to a party (where every two people are either friends or strangers) such that there are three mutual friends or three mutual strangers is six. </p>
<p>What if we would like four people to be mutual friends or mutual strangers? What is the smallest number of people we must invite to a party to be certain of this? This question has been answered. It’s 18. </p>
<p>What if we would like five people to be mutual friends or mutual strangers? In this situation, the smallest number of people to invite to a party to be guaranteed of this is – unknown. Nobody knows. While this problem is easy to describe and perhaps sounds rather simple, it is notoriously difficult.</p>
<h1>Ramsey numbers</h1>
<p>What we have been discussing is a type of number in graph theory called a Ramsey number. These numbers are named for the British philosopher, economist and mathematician <a href="https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1810/3484/RamseyText.html?sequence=5">Frank Plumpton Ramsey</a>. </p>
<p>Ramsey died at the age of 26 but obtained at his very early age a very curious theorem in mathematics, which gave rise to our question here. Say we have another plane full of points connected by red and blue lines. We pick two positive integers, named r and s. We want to have exactly r points where all lines between them are red or s points where all lines between them are blue. What’s the smallest number of points we can do this with? That’s called a Ramsey number. </p>
<p>For example, say we want our plane to have at least three points connected by all red lines and three points connected by all blue lines. The Ramsey number – the smallest number of points we need to make this happen – is six. </p>
<p>When mathematicians look at a problem, they often ask themselves: Does this suggest another question? This is what has happened with Ramsey numbers – and party problems. </p>
<p>For example, here’s one: Five girls are planning a party. They have decided to invite some boys to the party, whether they know the boys or not. How many boys do they need to invite to be certain that there will always be three boys among them such that three of the five girls are either friends with all three boys or are not acquainted with all three boys? It’s probably not easy to make a good guess at the answer. It’s 41!</p>
<p>Very few Ramsey numbers are known. However, this doesn’t stop mathematicians from trying to solve such problems. Often, failing to solve one problem can lead to an even more interesting problem. Such is the life of a mathematician.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80256/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Let’s say you want the perfect mix of friends and strangers at your next party. Mathematicians have been working on a version of this problem for nearly a century, and the answer is complicated.Gary Chartrand, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics, Western Michigan UniversityArthur Benjamin, Professor of Mathematics, Harvey Mudd CollegePing Zhang, Professor of Mathematics, Western Michigan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/794752017-06-30T01:04:50Z2017-06-30T01:04:50ZFrom public good to personal pursuit: Historical roots of the student debt crisis<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176124/original/file-20170628-31318-1k59itt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Has student debt changed because the purpose of education has changed?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">John Collier/Library of Congress, Ermolaev Alexander/Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://berniesanders.com/issues/its-time-to-make-college-tuition-free-and-debt-free/">promise of free college education</a> helped propel Bernie Sanders’ 2016 bid for the Democratic nomination to national prominence. It reverberated during the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vk4imizwSlA">confirmation hearings for Betsy DeVos</a> as Secretary of Education and <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/04/pf/college/bernie-sanders-tuition-free-college/index.html">Sanders continues to push the issue</a>.</p>
<p>In conversations among politicians, college administrators, educators, parents and students, college affordability seems to be seen as a purely financial issue – it’s all about money.</p>
<p>My <a href="http://tadamtransnationalhistory.com">research</a> into the historical cost of college shows that the roots of the current <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2017/02/21/student-loan-debt-statistics-2017/#49139fbd5dab">student debt crisis</a> are neither economic nor financial in origin, but predominantly social. Tuition fees and student loans became an essential part of the equation only as Americans came to believe in an entirely different purpose for higher education.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176111/original/file-20170628-31335-exg1la.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176111/original/file-20170628-31335-exg1la.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176111/original/file-20170628-31335-exg1la.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176111/original/file-20170628-31335-exg1la.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176111/original/file-20170628-31335-exg1la.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176111/original/file-20170628-31335-exg1la.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176111/original/file-20170628-31335-exg1la.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Students took to the streets to protest their debt burdens as part of Occupy Boston in 2011.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/campusgrotto/6235272007">CampusGrotto/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Cost of a college degree today</h2>
<p>For many students, graduation means debt. In 2012, more than <a href="https://studentloanhero.com/student-loan-debt-statistics/">44 million Americans</a> (14 percent of the total population) were still paying off student loans. And the average graduate in 2016 left college with more than $37,000 in student loan debt.</p>
<p>Student loan debt has become the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/17/business/dealbook/household-debt-united-states.html">second-largest type of personal debt</a> among Americans. Besides leading to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.11.027">depression and anxiety</a>, student loan debt slows down economic growth: It <a href="http://www.asa.org/site/assets/files/3793/life_delayed.pdf">prevents young Americans</a> from buying houses and cars and starting a family. Economist <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/alvaro-mezza.htm">Alvaro Mezza</a>, among others, has shown that there is a negative correlation between <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.17016/FEDS.2016.010">increasing student loan debt and homeownership</a>.</p>
<p>The increase in student loan debt should come as no surprise given the increasing cost of college and the share that students are asked to shoulder. <a href="http://www.chronicle.com/interactives/statesupport">Decreasing state support for colleges</a> over the last two decades caused colleges to raise tuition fees significantly. From 1995 to 2015, tuition and fees at 310 national universities ranked by U.S. News <a href="https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/2015/07/29/chart-see-20-years-of-tuition-growth-at-national-universities">rose considerably</a>, increasing by nearly 180 percent at private schools and over 225 percent at public schools.</p>
<p>Whatever the reason, tuition has gone up. And students are paying that higher tuition with <a href="https://studentloanhero.com/student-loan-debt-statistics">student loans</a>. These loans can influence students’ decisions about <a href="http://www.hamiltonproject.org/papers/major_decisions_graduates_earnings_growth_debt_repayment/">which majors to pick</a> and <a href="https://qz.com/680954/millennials-please-dont-waste-your-money-on-graduate-school/">whether to pursue graduate studies</a>.</p>
<iframe src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/boryX/1/" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" oallowfullscreen="oallowfullscreen" msallowfullscreen="msallowfullscreen" width="100%" height="600"></iframe>
<h2>Early higher education: a public good</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176122/original/file-20170628-1009-1bsghsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176122/original/file-20170628-1009-1bsghsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176122/original/file-20170628-1009-1bsghsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176122/original/file-20170628-1009-1bsghsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176122/original/file-20170628-1009-1bsghsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176122/original/file-20170628-1009-1bsghsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176122/original/file-20170628-1009-1bsghsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Stanford University crew team, between 1910-1915. Stanford was founded on the principle of providing a free education. The university did not start charging students tuition until 1920.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2889448163">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During the 19th century, college education in the United States was offered largely for free. Colleges trained students from middle-class backgrounds as high school teachers, ministers and community leaders who, after graduation, were to serve public needs.</p>
<p>This free tuition model had to do with perceptions about the role of higher education: College education was considered a public good. Students who received such an education would put it to use in the betterment of society. Everyone benefited when people chose to go to college. And because it was considered a public good, society was willing to pay for it – either by offering college education free of charge or by providing tuition scholarships to individual students.</p>
<p>Stanford University, which was founded on <a href="https://founders.stanford.edu/stanford-history">the premise of offering college education free of charge to California residents</a>, was an example of the former. Stanford did not charge tuition for almost three decades from its opening in 1891 until 1920.</p>
<p>Other colleges, such as the College of William and Mary, offered comprehensive tuition scholarship programs, which covered tuition in exchange for a pledge of the student to engage in some kind of service after graduation. Beginning in 1888, William and Mary provided <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=RBUSAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA454">full tuition scholarships</a> to about one third of its students. In exchange, students receiving this scholarship pledged to teach for two years at a Virginia public school.</p>
<p>And even though the cost for educating students rose significantly in the second half of the 19th century, college administrators such as Harvard President <a href="http://www.harvard.edu/about-harvard/harvard-glance/history-presidency/charles-william-eliot">Charles W. Eliot</a> insisted that these costs should not be passed on to students. In a letter to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Francis_Adams_Jr.">Charles Francis Adams</a> dated June 9, 1904, Eliot wrote, “I want to have the College <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=hxpvsfxjfMAC&pg=PA22">open equally</a> to men with much money, little money, or no money, provided they all have brains.”</p>
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<h2>College education becomes a private pursuit</h2>
<p>The perception of higher education changed dramatically around 1910. Private colleges began to attract more students from upper-class families – students who went to college for the social experience and not necessarily for learning.</p>
<p>This social and cultural change led to a fundamental shift in the defined purpose of a college education. What was once a public good designed to advance the welfare of society was becoming a private pursuit for self-aggrandizement. Young people entering college were no longer seen as doing so for the betterment of society, but rather as pursuing personal goals: in particular, enjoying the social setting of private colleges and obtaining a respected professional position upon graduation.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176114/original/file-20170628-12666-1xsr7sj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176114/original/file-20170628-12666-1xsr7sj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=866&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176114/original/file-20170628-12666-1xsr7sj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=866&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176114/original/file-20170628-12666-1xsr7sj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=866&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176114/original/file-20170628-12666-1xsr7sj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1089&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176114/original/file-20170628-12666-1xsr7sj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1089&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176114/original/file-20170628-12666-1xsr7sj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1089&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John D. Rockefeller was instrumental in bringing about the modern day reality of college tuition and student loans.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_D._Rockefeller_1885.jpg">The Rockefeller Archive Center</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1927, John D. Rockefeller began campaigning for charging students the full cost it took to educate them. Further, he suggested that students could shoulder such costs through student loans. Rockefeller and like-minded donors (in particular, <a href="https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001974372">William E. Harmon</a>, the wealthy real estate magnate) were quite successful in their campaign. They convinced donors, educators and college administrators that students should pay for their own education because going to college was considered a deeply personal affair. Tuition – and student loans – thus became commonly accepted aspects of the economics of higher education.</p>
<p>The shift in attitude regarding college has also become commonly accepted. Altruistic notions about the advancement of society have generally been pushed aside in favor of the image of college as a vehicle for <a href="https://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/why-go-to-college-at-all/">individual enrichment</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176116/original/file-20170628-3154-1p3kb3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176116/original/file-20170628-3154-1p3kb3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=288&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176116/original/file-20170628-3154-1p3kb3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=288&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176116/original/file-20170628-3154-1p3kb3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=288&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176116/original/file-20170628-3154-1p3kb3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176116/original/file-20170628-3154-1p3kb3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176116/original/file-20170628-3154-1p3kb3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dartmouth College students carving canes on campus in the early 1920s. In the early 20th century, as more students from upper-class families began attending college for the social – rather than educational – experience, many colleges began the practice of charging tuition.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dartmouth_College_campus_-_students_carving_canes_on_the_Senior_Fence.jpg">Council of the Alumni of Dartmouth College</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A new social contract</h2>
<p>If the United States is looking for alternatives to what some would call a <a href="https://www.sanders.senate.gov/download/collegeforallsummary/?inline=file">failing funding model for college affordability</a>, the solution may lie in looking further back than the current system, which has been in place since the 1930s.</p>
<p>In the 19th century, communities and the state would foot the bill for college tuition because students were contributing to society. They served the common good by teaching high school for a certain number of years or by taking leadership positions within local communities. A few marginal programs with similar missions (<a href="https://www.goarmy.com/rotc.html">ROTC</a> and <a href="https://www.teachforamerica.org/">Teach for America</a>) still exist today, but students participating in these programs are very much in the minority.</p>
<p>Instead, higher education today seems to be about what college can do for you. It’s not about what college students can do for society.</p>
<p>I believe that tuition-free education can only be realized if college education is again reframed as a public good. For this, students, communities, donors and politicians would have to enter into a new social contract that exchanges tuition-free education for public services.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176112/original/file-20170628-31297-ftmsl6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176112/original/file-20170628-31297-ftmsl6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176112/original/file-20170628-31297-ftmsl6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176112/original/file-20170628-31297-ftmsl6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176112/original/file-20170628-31297-ftmsl6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176112/original/file-20170628-31297-ftmsl6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176112/original/file-20170628-31297-ftmsl6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Students from UC Davis working on a environmental restoration project in 2013. Could a tuition-free, service-oriented approach be the future of higher education?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/goodlifegarden/10842803016">Jonathan Su/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79475/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Adam received funding from the Friends of the Princeton University Library, the Rockefeller Archive Center, the Washington University Libraries Department of Special Collections, and the State Historical Society of Iowa.</span></em></p>About 44 million Americans are still paying off student loan debt. But it didn’t always used to be this way. As the perceived purpose of a college education changed, so too did the way we pay for it.Thomas Adam, Professor of Transnational History, University of Texas at ArlingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/785062017-06-25T09:57:20Z2017-06-25T09:57:20ZBlocking out the sun to reduce global warming - an idea still in the making<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172682/original/file-20170607-11324-16ml6p9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Solar radiation management involves spraying tiny reflective particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect away some of the energy from the sun </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Solar radiation management is a controversial and theoretical proposal for addressing some of the risks of climate change. The Conversation Africa’s Energy and Environment editor Samantha Spooner asked experts Asfawossen Asrat and Andy Parker about solar radiation management and the risks it carries.</em></p>
<p><strong>What is solar radiation management and how does it work?</strong></p>
<p>Solar radiation management is an idea that can reduce some of the risks of global warming by blocking out a small amount of sunlight. It sounds like science fiction, and is only in the early stages of research, but it’s <a href="https://geoengineering.environment.harvard.edu/">being</a> taken seriously by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/11/science/panel-urges-more-research-on-geoengineering-as-a-tool-against-climate-change.html?smid=tw-share&_r=3">climate scientists</a> and <a href="https://www.edf.org/climate/our-position-geoengineering">environmentalists</a>. <a href="http://www.geoengineering.ox.ac.uk/oxford-principles/principles/">Social scientists</a> concerned with the potential effects of global warming are also taking an interest.</p>
<p>It <a href="https://royalsociety.org/%7E/media/Royal_Society_Content/policy/publications/2009/8693.pdf">involves</a> spraying tiny reflective particles – such as sulphur dioxide – into the upper atmosphere, the stratosphere. They would remain up there for a year or two, reflecting away some of the energy from the sun before it reaches the Earth’s lower atmosphere. </p>
<p>Another idea would involve spraying seawater into low-lying marine clouds, where the tiny droplets would act as ‘<a href="http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jetstream/clouds/cloudwise/learn.html">cloud condensation nuclei</a>’ – particles which attract water – to make them whiter and brighter and more reflective. </p>
<p><strong>At present, it’s still a theoretical concept – what major research has been conducted on it and have any projects been proposed?</strong></p>
<p>To date almost all research on solar radiation management has been done indoors – either <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1002/wcc.423/asset/wcc423.pdf;jsessionid=1F7A3446840D390C6811CEA2F3B7437B.f01t01?v=1&t=j49nvy1s&s=2b9c13ed803766f3a0abdd2966dbd6b32793b962">computer modelling</a> of the potential impacts or social science research. </p>
<p>A couple of small experiments have been conducted outdoors, including an experiment by scientists <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:tvmJeYK2gZUJ:aerosols.ucsd.edu/E_PEACE.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk">in America</a> on marine cloud formation and an experiment by <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.3103/S106837390910001X">a Russian team</a> on the reflective properties of aerosols. </p>
<p>Earlier this year a team of scientists <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603974/harvard-scientists-moving-ahead-on-plans-for-atmospheric-geoengineering-experiments/">Harvard University</a> announced plans to conduct another small scale experiment. They want to understand the atmospheric chemistry implications of adding aerosols to the stratosphere. This would be a low risk, small scale experiment. There have been no large scale experiments either conducted or proposed.</p>
<p><strong>How can it help us save the planet from global warming?</strong></p>
<p>Reducing the amount of global warming by cutting greenhouse gas emissions is as important as ever. But solar radiation management will not be able to save the planet from it. What it might be able to do is to reduce some of the risks of the warming while humanity gets its emissions under control. </p>
<p>Even if the world makes sudden and dramatic cuts to its carbon emissions, the temperature would <a href="https://climate.nasa.gov/solutions/adaptation-mitigation/">keep rising</a> for decades to come, in part because carbon dioxide has a <a href="https://climate.nasa.gov/solutions/adaptation-mitigation/">long lifetime</a> in the atmosphere. Solar radiation management is therefore the only <a href="https://royalsociety.org/%7E/media/Royal_Society_Content/policy/publications/2009/8693.pdf">known way</a> to quickly stop the rise in global temperatures. That means it could provide a unique way to combat some climate risks. </p>
<p>Modelling studies have <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wcc.423/pdf">shown</a> that solar radiation management may be able to reduce many of the projected risks of climate change in most parts of the world. This includes the risks of rising temperatures, disruption to rainfall, rising sea levels, and increased storm intensity. But its effects are not expected to be distributed uniformly because the global climate is a non-linear, complex system. Solar radiation management could also carry large risks, plus there are major uncertainties about its desired and undesired effects.</p>
<p><strong>What are the risks?</strong></p>
<p>Solar radiation management <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/113/52/14910.full">could delay</a> the regeneration of the ozone layer if sulphur dioxide was used as the reflective aerosol. It could also result in increased weather disruptions – for instance changes to precipitation – in some regions, depending on how it was used.</p>
<p>There are also health concerns. It could cause a slight increase in <a href="http://lae.mit.edu/uploads/LAE_report_series/2015/LAE-2015-001-T.pdf">respiratory illness</a> around the world, as inhalation of sulphur dioxide is known to cause lung problems and the use of solar radiation management would slightly increase the atmospheric levels of sulphur dioxide. </p>
<p>In addition there is the possibility of unknown effects –- those that are hard to predict because the planet’s climate is such a complex system where strong regional variability is the norm. For instance, the countries straddling the equator receive rainfall at different times of the year due to the varying position of the <a href="http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jetstream/tropics/itcz.html">Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ)</a>. </p>
<p>On top of the physical risks, there are potentially social and political ones too. For example, what happens if the idea of solar radiation management distracts governments from the crucial business of cutting greenhouse gas emissions? How is it possible to ensure that the views of the most vulnerable people are taken into account if solar radiation management is ever used? How would we get global agreement over where to set the planet’s thermostat? </p>
<p>These are all crucial questions if solar radiation management is ever to be seriously considered for use.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78506/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Solar radiation management might be able to reduce some of the risks of global warming while countries get their emissions under control.Asfawossen Asrat, Professor, Geology, Addis Ababa UniversityAndy Parker, Fellow, Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, PotsdamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/798142017-06-22T00:54:11Z2017-06-22T00:54:11ZDrew Faust and old, white men: The changing role of university presidents<p>If your perception of higher education is that it’s led by aging white males, you’re right. According to a <a href="http://www.acenet.edu/news-room/Pages/American-College-President-Study.aspx">report released this week</a> by the American Council on Education (ACE), the average college president in 2016 was a 62-year-old married white male with a doctorate.</p>
<p>One recent exception was Drew Faust, who was appointed Harvard University’s first-ever female president in 2007. The comings and goings of modern university presidents don’t typically warrant much public attention, but Faust’s retirement announcement last week was covered by The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/us/harvard-president-resign.html">New York Times</a>, the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2017/06/14/harvard-university-president-drew-gilpin-faust-to-step-down-in-2018">Washington Post</a> and many other leading media outlets.</p>
<p>Why the attention? While it’s true that Faust made important contributions to the university (shepherding Harvard through the financial crisis of 2008 and grappling with the college’s historically exclusive culture), her efforts were not, in my view, groundbreaking. However, as the first woman to lead arguably the most well-known university in the world, Faust broke through one of the highest glass ceilings in academia.</p>
<p>As a scholar of higher education leadership, I’ve seen how Faust’s tenure at Harvard represents an important, albeit slow, change in the diversity of college presidents – a change that still fails to reflect the demographics of the population of students. Her retirement is also at the leading edge of an impending tidal wave of retirements that presents a possibility to reshape the leadership of our colleges and universities.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175060/original/file-20170621-30161-vzzavd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175060/original/file-20170621-30161-vzzavd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175060/original/file-20170621-30161-vzzavd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175060/original/file-20170621-30161-vzzavd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175060/original/file-20170621-30161-vzzavd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175060/original/file-20170621-30161-vzzavd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175060/original/file-20170621-30161-vzzavd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former Baylor University President Kenneth Starr, left, was followed by the university’s first female president, Linda A. Livingstone, in 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Why should we care who leads our colleges?</h2>
<p>The average citizen would likely have a hard time naming five out of the more than <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/trendgenerator/tganswer.aspx?sid=1&qid=1">5,000 sitting college presidents</a> in the United States. Exceptions might come when <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/22/education/indiana-governor-will-lead-purdue.html">well-known politicians step into the role</a> or when a <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/06/baylor-university-coach-briles-ken-starr/484544/">scandal forces someone to step down</a>.</p>
<p>And yet, colleges and universities are among the nation’s most important social institutions. They educate more than <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372">20 million students</a> every year. They provide critical opportunities for <a href="https://cew.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/Parchment-Credentials-Competencies-Issue-Brief.pdf">first-generation and underrepresented</a> individuals. They’re also among the nation’s steadiest and most important <a href="http://www.sunypress.edu/p-5608-universities-and-colleges-as-ec.aspx">economic drivers</a>.</p>
<p>In short, universities have become some of the most important <a href="http://community-wealth.org/strategies/panel/anchors/index.html">anchor institutions</a> in our communities. Who leads them and how they are led can have a lasting impact not just on the institutions themselves, but on the surrounding communities and our entire nation.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174816/original/file-20170620-32348-g57ju5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174816/original/file-20170620-32348-g57ju5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174816/original/file-20170620-32348-g57ju5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174816/original/file-20170620-32348-g57ju5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174816/original/file-20170620-32348-g57ju5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174816/original/file-20170620-32348-g57ju5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174816/original/file-20170620-32348-g57ju5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The University of Pennsylvania boosts the West Philadelphia economy by millions of dollars each year by purchasing locally.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/philadelphia-oct-20-university-pennsylvania-on-342913109?src=Ci1xuY1e3qc2l6lvXIU0ZA-1-65">f11photo/shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The slowly diversifying presidency</h2>
<p>In many ways, Drew Faust represents most characteristics of the average college president: She is white, married and over 65 years old. Indeed, according to <a href="http://www.acenet.edu/news-room/Pages/American-College-President-Study.aspx">the ACE report</a>, the college presidency is older and whiter than it was five years ago.</p>
<p>And despite numerous changes since the 1980s (technology alone has seen the advent of smartphones, social media and the internet), the profile of the college president has remained remarkably the same.</p>
<p>Importantly, this profile largely does not reflect the students that universities serve. In 2015, <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_csb.asp">40 percent of students</a> in public four-year institutions were from nonwhite backgrounds. And, more than half of the presidents surveyed by ACE indicated that <a href="http://www.acenet.edu/news-room/Pages/Comprehensive-Demographic-Profile-of-American-College-Presidents-Shows-Slow-Progress-in-Diversifying-Leadership-Ranks.aspx">racial issues on campus were more of a priority</a> than they were three years ago.</p>
<p>The good news is that minority presidencies are up since 2006 – increasing <a href="http://www.acenet.edu/news-room/Pages/American-College-President-Study.aspx">from 13 to 17 percent</a>. Unfortunately, that modest increase is still not nearly reflective of the changing student demographics and masks a significant drop in Hispanic female presidents.</p>
<p>As for female presidents, Drew Faust’s appointment was not just important for Harvard; it was also representative of a broader trend of bringing more women into these roles. As of 2016, <a href="http://www.acenet.edu/news-room/Pages/American-College-President-Study.aspx">30 percent of college presidents were women</a> – three times the number in 1986 when the survey was first conducted. Yet, this is still far behind the 57 percent of college students <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372">that are women</a>.</p>
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<h2>Changing pathways to the presidency</h2>
<p>Eleven percent of presidents are <a href="http://www.acenet.edu/news-room/Pages/American-College-President-Study.aspx">over the age of 71</a> – more than double the number just five years ago. And about one in four reported that their previous role had been as a president or CEO. In other words, universities seem to be appointing experienced candidates.</p>
<p>However, at some point, those at the end of the presidential pipeline will eventually exit it. More than half of the presidents surveyed by ACE indicated they intended to leave their current presidency within five years.</p>
<p>That will give universities the opportunity to bring new talent and experiences into these leadership roles. But where will they come from?</p>
<p>The traditional path to the presidency has long been this: professor to tenured professor to dean to a chief academic officer (commonly called the provost or vice president for academic affairs). Indeed, this still <a href="http://www.acenet.edu/news-room/Pages/Comprehensive-Demographic-Profile-of-American-College-Presidents-Shows-Slow-Progress-in-Diversifying-Leadership-Ranks.aspx">remains the dominant path</a>.</p>
<p>Yet, more and more presidents are skipping the vice presidency on their path to leadership. Drew Faust was appointed as Harvard’s president after serving for six years as the dean of Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. According to the <a href="https://dupress.deloitte.com/dup-us-en/industry/public-sector/college-presidency-higher-education-leadership.html">Pathways to the Presidency</a> report, this is a very recent trend – one that likely indicates that the next generation of academic leaders believe the traditional pathway is too long.</p>
<p>The impending retirement wave, coupled with pulling more presidents from earlier stages, will likely drop the average age of the presidency. But these traditional pipelines to leadership remain the province of white men. As long as that remains the case, diversity among university presidents will likely remain low. For example, the State University of New York (SUNY) system, where I am a professor, has implemented programs purposefully created to <a href="https://www.suny.edu/suny-news/press-releases/03-2017/3-25-17/governor-cuomo-announces-launch-of-suny-hispanic-leadership-institute.html">recruit and prepare a more diverse set</a> of deans, provosts and presidents. Other <a href="http://thenationalforum.org/new-leadership-academy/">universities</a> and <a href="http://www.aascu.org/MLI/">organizations</a> across the country are implementing similar programs. </p>
<h2>A changing of the guard</h2>
<p>Today’s college president is expected to be a mayor, city manager, CEO, academic and fundraiser. In some cases, they oversee physical plants that include housing, hospitals, airports and even nuclear reactors. Their operating budgets are in the hundreds of millions of dollars and they oversee thousands of staff and students. No doubt, it’s a complicated position. </p>
<p>But, these individuals also live within a rapidly changing social fabric and lead institutions that have long served as social anchors. As a group, our nation’s college presidents have an ability to help us collectively navigate these changing times. </p>
<p>As a nation, I believe we need colleges and universities that are forward-looking, responsive to the changing environment and willing to engage in meaningful change. This means that we need a diverse, thoughtful group of university leaders who both appreciate and can advance these agendas. Will we see the profile of the college president change? And, if the profile changes, will we see our colleges change along with it?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79814/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jason Lane works for the State University of New York, which has 64 college campuses and is regularly searching for new presidents. </span></em></p>Most university presidents in the US are still white, male and over the age of 60. But as they retire, is there an opportunity to reshape college leadership and, with it, higher education itself?Jason E. Lane, Chair and Professor of Educational Policy and Leadership, Executive Director of SUNY's Strategic, Academic, and Innovative Leadership (SAIL) Institute, and Co-Director of the Cross-Border Education Research Team, University at Albany, State University of New YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/792242017-06-15T04:03:00Z2017-06-15T04:03:00ZDear students, what you post can wreck your life<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173436/original/file-20170612-3809-okxd5n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/two-worried-roommates-reading-bad-news-556708990?src=jwiFJHKMkpaxMisAB8pyaA-1-0">Antonio Guillem/shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Dear Student,</p>
<p>Harvard recently <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/harvard-rescinds-student-acceptances-over-obscene-facebook-memes-2017-6">rescinded admission offers</a> for some incoming freshmen who participated in a private Facebook group sharing offensive memes. The incident has sparked a lot of discussion: Was Harvard’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/09/learning/did-harvard-go-too-far-in-its-decision-to-rescind-admission-to-10-incoming-freshmen.html">decision</a> justified? What about the <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2017/06/07/harvard-rescinded-acceptances-private-facebook-posts-doesnt-violate-first-amendment/">First Amendment?</a> Do young people know the <a href="http://nypost.com/2017/06/06/how-can-harvard-kids-still-not-understand-that-what-happens-online-doesnt-stay-online/">dangers of social media?</a></p>
<p>I’m a business school lecturer, career services counselor and former recruiter, and I’ve seen how social media becomes part of a person’s brand – a brand that can help you or hurt you.</p>
<p><a href="http://press.kaptest.com/press-releases/kaplan-test-prep-survey-college-admissions-officers-say-social-media-increasingly-affects-applicants-chances">College admissions staff</a>, <a href="http://www.careerbuilder.com/share/aboutus/pressreleasesdetail.aspx?sd=4%2f28%2f2016&siteid=cbpr&sc_cmp1=cb_pr945_&id=pr945&ed=12%2f31%2f2016">future employers</a> and even <a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/10/21/online-dating-relationships">potential dates</a> are more and more likely to check your profile and make decisions or judgments about you.</p>
<p>Here’s what you should know so you don’t end up like those Harvard prospects.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173444/original/file-20170612-1873-1xuec6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173444/original/file-20170612-1873-1xuec6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173444/original/file-20170612-1873-1xuec6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173444/original/file-20170612-1873-1xuec6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173444/original/file-20170612-1873-1xuec6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173444/original/file-20170612-1873-1xuec6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173444/original/file-20170612-1873-1xuec6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The rescinded Harvard admissions have sparked debate over First Amendment rights to free speech.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/cambridge-ma-may-29-students-harvard-197551889?src=zzQ6Ds1FUrXmj9TF-xRVcg-1-48">f11photo/shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>1. Social media posts disappear, right?</h2>
<p>Let’s be clear about one thing: You’ve been building your online reputation since your first Snapchat. Think the posts disappear? Think private pages are private? Think again.</p>
<p>You might feel like your life and opinions are no one’s business, but you can’t always control <a href="http://www.askamanager.org/2015/09/i-was-fired-after-a-stranger-sent-photos-of-my-private-text-messages-to-my-employer.html">who sees what you post</a>. Every photo, video, tweet, like and comment could be <a href="https://mic.com/articles/150198/people-are-dragging-miss-teen-usa-2016-karlie-hay-for-using-the-n-word-a-lot-on-twitter#.xfuFXLXqF">screenshotted</a> by your friends (or frenemies). You might make a mistake with your privacy settings or post to <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/04/kitchen-aid-twitter-tweet-obama-grandmother_n_1938031.html">the wrong account</a>. And a determined online sleuth can sometimes find ways around privacy settings, viewing photos and posts you might think are well hidden.</p>
<h2>2. Do employers and colleges actually look at this stuff?</h2>
<p>Your profile will very likely be scrutinized by college admissions officers and employers. According to CareerBuilder’s 2017 <a href="http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/number-of-employers-using-social-media-to-screen-candidates-at-all-time-high-finds-latest-careerbuilder-study-300474228.html">social media recruitment survey</a>, social media screening is through the roof:</p>
<ul>
<li>600 percent increase since 2006 in employers using social media to screen</li>
<li>70 percent of employers use social networking sites to research job candidates</li>
<li>34 percent of employers found online content that caused them to reprimand or fire an employee</li>
</ul>
<p>This trend is common with admissions as well. Kaplan Test Prep’s 2017 <a href="http://press.kaptest.com/press-releases/kaplan-test-prep-survey-college-admissions-officers-say-social-media-increasingly-affects-applicants-chances">survey of over 350 college admissions officers</a> found that 35 percent checked applicants’ social media profiles. Many who do said social media has influenced their admission decisions.</p>
<iframe src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/3iWI7/7/" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" oallowfullscreen="oallowfullscreen" msallowfullscreen="msallowfullscreen" width="100%" height="600"></iframe>
<h2>3. What are recruiters watching out for?</h2>
<p>So what are the potential hazards to avoid? These are some of the types of posts that left a bad impression on me when I used to recruit:</p>
<ul>
<li>References to illegal drugs, sexual posts</li>
<li>Incriminating or embarrassing photos or videos</li>
<li>Profanity, defamatory or racist comments</li>
<li>Politically charged attacks</li>
<li>Spelling and grammar issues</li>
<li>Complaining or bad-mouthing – What’s to say you wouldn’t do the same to a new school, company, boss, or peer?</li>
</ul>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"12944403659"}"></div></p>
<h2>4. What can I do to build a positive online reputation?</h2>
<p>Remember, social media is not all bad; in many cases it helps recruiters get a good feel for your personality and potential fit. The CareerBuilder survey found <a href="http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/number-of-employers-using-social-media-to-screen-candidates-at-all-time-high-finds-latest-careerbuilder-study-300474228.html">44 percent of employers</a> who screened candidates via social networks found positive information that caused them to hire a candidate.</p>
<p>From my experience, the following information can support and confirm a candidate’s resume:</p>
<ul>
<li>Your education and experiences match the recruiter’s requirements</li>
<li>Your profile picture and summary is professional</li>
<li>Your personality and interests align with the values of the company or university </li>
<li>Your involvement in community or social organizations shows character</li>
<li>Positive, supportive comments, responses, or testimonials</li>
</ul>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"869743954735939586"}"></div></p>
<h2>5. How do I clean things up?</h2>
<p>Research. Both the college of your dreams and your future employer could Google you, so you should do the same thing. Also check all of your social media profiles – even the ones you haven’t used for a while – and get rid of anything that could send the wrong message. Remember, things can’t be unseen. </p>
<p>Bottom line: Would you want a future boss, admissions officer, or blind date to read or see it? If not, don’t post it. If you already have, delete it.</p>
<p>Sincerely,</p>
<p>Your Career Counselor</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79224/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thao Nelson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>To post or not to post? Colleges and employers are increasingly checking social media to get a sense of their candidates. Here’s what you should (and shouldn’t) post in order to secure your future.Thao Nelson, Lecturer, Kelley School of Business, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.