Affirmative Action Matters

Creating opportunities for students around the world

Laura Dudley Jenkins, Michele S. Moses, Laura Dudley Jenkins, Michele S. Moses

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317748458
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Affirmative Action Matters focuses specifically on affirmative action policies in higher education admissions, the sphere that has been the most controversial in many of the nations that have such policies. It brings together distinguished scholars from diverse nations to examine and discuss the historical, political and philosophical contexts of affirmative action and clarify policy developments to further the meaningful equality of educational opportunity. This unique volume includes both well established and emerging policies from the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia, policies which developed under a variety of political systems and target a range of underrepresented groups, based on race, ethnicity, gender, class, social background, or region.

Accessible and thought provoking case studies of affirmative action demonstrate that such policies are expanding to different countries and target populations. While some countries, such as India, have affirmative action policies that predate those in the United States, affirmative action is a recent development in countries such as Brazil and France.

Legal or political pressures to move away from explicitly race-based policies in several countries have complicated affirmative action and make this assessment of international alternatives particularly timely. New or newly modified policies target a variety of disadvantaged groups, based on geography, class, or caste, in addition to race or sex. International scholars in six countries spanning five continents offer insights into their own countries' experiences to examine the implications of policy shifts from race toward other categories of disadvantage, to consider best practices in student admission policies, and to assess the future of affirmative action.

1
National vicissitudes in higher education affirmative action policies

MICHELE S. MOSES AND LAURA DUDLEY JENKINS

Affirmative action. Discrimination positive. Quotas. Reservations. Albeit using different terms and developing within distinct national contexts, such policies aim at increasing access to and equity within higher education. How is it that at the very same moment in history, some countries, like Brazil, are making significant moves to expand affirmative action¹ programs in higher education² admissions, while others, like the United States, increasingly are limiting or eliminating them? What can we learn from these differing national values and experiences with higher education affirmative action policies?

Scholarly examination of affirmative action and related policies and programs often centers on the experiences of a select few nations. Usually these are nations with more widespread programs such as South Africa or India. In this book, we focus on these more prominent programs, but in addition, we discuss lesser-known ones as well. Each context features diverse understandings, values, justifications, and policy implementation related to affirmative action for students who are underrepresented in their country’s higher education system. This book first catalogues higher education affirmative action programs in each of the 194 countries of the world. In that overview, as well as some of the subsequent chapters, we are able to take into account affirmative action programs that have received less attention, such as those in Bulgaria, France, and Sri Lanka. Successive chapters focus on national case studies, presenting the specific policies and politics of six countries spanning five continents. We examine the increasingly prevalent phenomenon of affirmative action expanding to different countries and target populations.

While some countries, such as India, have affirmative action policies that predate those in the United States, affirmative action is emerging in countries such as Brazil and France. New or newly modified policies target a variety of disadvantaged groups, based on geography, class, or caste, in addition to ethnicity, race, or gender. These comparative case studies reveal the implications of a policy shift toward different categories of disadvantage and allow us to ponder the future of affirmative action. After the inventory chapter, the country-specific chapters are arranged to reflect the chronological order of the initial policies in each country, illuminating the historical sweep of affirmative action efforts from late colonial India to present-day France. The authors of each country case study address the following four themes:

1. Introduction to each policy: What makes this national case distinctive or particularly revealing about some aspect of affirmative action? Each country case study chapter includes a summary of that nation’s affirmative action history, policy, and major controversies.
2. Political, legal, and ideological framework: What are the political, legal, and ideological contexts within which these policies must operate? In answering this question, the authors cover issues such as group vs. individual rights, elite vs. non-elite educational institutions, government vs. private sector roles, or voluntary vs. state-mandated affirmative action.
3. Key categories: Which social or cultural identities are used to target affirmative action policies? Various policies focus on race, gender, ethnicity, caste, geography,³ social background, type of schooling, language, class, or economic disadvantage. Are policy makers changing the targets of these policies?
4. Multiple dimensions of “ access”: Although the primary focus is on student admissions, chapter authors also consider how comprehensively affirmative action in each country addresses the trajectory of a disadvantaged student from pre-admission to graduation. Different policies emphasize different phases, from pre-college preparation to admissions policies to support while in college, which can deepen our conceptualization and examination of access.

Thus, this volume focuses on affirmative action policies in higher education admissions, the sphere that has been the most controversial in many of the nations that have such policies. Herein we provide a systematic, country-by-country analysis of the history, development, national context, legislation, and public controversy related to affirmative action. In addition, each country chapter features an author or co-author from the country being examined. This is important for analyses that rely on intimate knowledge of national contexts, policies, and ideologies.

According to Moses (2010), there are typically four common justifications for affirmative action in higher education admissions, as follows:

1. Remediation, highlighting that affirmative action compensates for past discrimination;
2. Economics, highlighting affirmative action as one way to help disadvantaged people contribute to economic efficiency;
3. Diversity, highlighting affirmative action’s role in increasing diversity on campus and the educational benefits that flow from it, as well as amongst officeholders in society; and
4. Social justice, highlighting affirmative action as one important tool in the quest for greater racial integration, equity, and justice.

These categories can be broken down further into two types of justification: instrumental and moral. Instrumental justifications view affirmative action policies merely as a means to an end; the policy serves the purpose of meeting a certain goal, such as providing society with more workers from disadvantaged groups or making institutions of higher education more diverse places. Moral justifications appeal to deeper beliefs about what is right and good and how people ought to be treated; these can be backward looking or forward looking (Anderson 2002; Dupper 2004; Gutmann 1999). Backward-looking justifications are based on past discrimination or historical injustices; forward-looking justifications focus on how affirmative action serves to help create an egalitarian and socially just society now and in the future. The economics and diversity rationales fall most clearly under the instrumental type and the remediation and social justice rationales fall under the moral type.

In several of the countries highlighted in this book – Brazil, India, South Africa, and the United States – affirmative action policies originated in the name of rectifying past wrongs. It is worth noting that in Brazil this remedial emphasis was coupled early on with an emphasis on affirmative action programs as an important part of addressing racism, increasing equity, and fostering social justice (Htun 2004; Martins et al. 2004). Thus far, in its relatively short history with the policy, many universities in Brazil are instituting voluntarily racial and ethnic as well as class-based quota policies (Oliven 2007). There is certainly controversy and debate over these policies, but the fact that universities have adopted the policy without government mandate underscores the power of social justice discourse.

Other scholars have made related but different distinctions between types of justification (e.g. Anderson 2002; Feinberg 1998; Forde-Mazrui 2004; Hodapp 2008). Anderson (2002), for one, highlighted two remedial justificatory categories for affirmative action: compensatory and integrative. Under compensatory justifications, affirmative action policies provide “restitution for illegal discrimination that took place in the past” (1196). This is parallel to what Moses (2010) called the remediation rationale. Proponents of the integrative⁴ rationale, including Anderson herself, aim “to dismantle current barriers to equal opportunity for disadvantaged racial groups” (1196). Anderson explained, “The integrative model represents race-conscious affirmative action as a forward-looking remedy for segregation, rather than as a backward-looking remedy for discrimination” (1197). As a forward-looking, moral justification concerned with increased racial integration and democratic participation, Anderson’s integrative rationale fits well under the broader rationale based on social justice.

While many of the countries highlighted in this volume have invoked in some fashion several of the four rationales described above, we can discern a difference in emphasis on each among the nations. For example, rationales based on the need to compensate for past (race or caste) discrimination seem to be compelling and salient in India and South Africa, but in the United States this rationale is less popularly acceptable and less compelling to the courts.

Preview of the chapters

The next chapter highlights key findings from our database on affirmative action for students in higher education in each country of the world. The volume then turns to country studies, organized chronologically and beginning with the oldest policies. Our concluding chapter synthesizes examples from the preceding chapters to draw conclusions about the importance of the ideological basis for affirmative action, trends in defining and targeting marginalized groups, and the continuing significance of affirmative action for countless students around the world.

Chapter 2 provides a big picture, drawing on our database of affirmative action efforts worldwide. Moses, Jenkins, Paguyo, and Wei highlight several findings. Nearly one quarter of the world’s countries provide some form of affirmative action for marginalized students in higher education, and the distribution of such polices varies regionally. Many of these policies started in the last twenty-five years. Gender is a popular focus of affirmative action in higher education, particularly in more recent policies, and seems to create less controversy than race or ethnicity. Some countries or institutions are using geography or secondary school instead of race or ethnicity. The authors note that rather than making race-based affirmative action obsolete, such policies could be combined with race-based affirmative action to offset multiple and cumulative forms of disadvantage.

In Chapter 3, Kavita A. Sharma and Laura Dudley Jenkins provide a short history of caste-based affirmative action in India from the colonial era through constitutional discussions and up to current policy debates. Various “Backward Class Commissions” have grappled with the definition of the so-called “backward classes” and the scope of policies to uplift them. Discussion of some landmark court cases illustrate the fault lines in the Constitution related to affirmative action, including ambiguities about targeting “caste” versus “class.” The Ashok Thakur case, for example, challenged the expansion of admissions quotas in institutions of higher education by 27 percent for Other Backward Classes, in addition to the existing quota of 22.5 percent seats for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. India already has experience combining social group and individual economic criteria in some policies, and additional multifaceted models of affirmative action (such as “deprivation indices”) have been used by universities or proposed by government commissions. A new debate seems to be emerging in which caste may no longer be the dominant target of access and equity policies.

Pepka Boyadjieva discusses admission policies to higher education during the period of totalitarian socialism in Bulgaria (1946–1989) in Chapter 4. The main function of these policies was social engineering to change the composition of the intelligentsia. Direct privileges guaranteed admission for a certain category of applicants, and indirect privileges increased the possibility for another group of applicants to enter higher education by allocating a quota for them. The analysis concentrates on the indirect social privileges, which were based on social characteristics such as social background, place of residence, ethnic background, and professional experience. Through such privileges, students were admitted with lower scores than other applicants. What is more, during the period of totalitarian socialism, the public motives for privileges – and especially social justice arguments – were distorted, and as a result, the privileges turned into a demoralizing and corrupting mechanism. This distortion has left a legacy shaping political discussions of access and equity even today. Drawing on archival documents, the chapter reveals how admission policies evolved from an academic into a political problem.

Patricia Marin’s chapter turns to race-conscious admissions policies in higher education institutions in the United States. After contextualizing the changing legal framework and varied implementation of these policies since the mid twentieth century, Marin examines the major arguments and strategies of proponents and opponents of affirmative action in the United States. She finds that recent US Supreme Court cases have inspired amicus curiae briefs supporting affirmative action from both expected and unexpected champions, but opponents continue to chisel away at policies through state level ballot initiatives, legislation, or executive orders. In light of a shift from the earlier “redress” rationale toward increasing emphasis on the “diversity” rationale, social scientists have accrued a wealth of studies on the positive impact of diverse college and university classrooms and on the most effective means to bring these about. She notes the negative trajectories of minority enrollments in states in which race-conscious admissions are limited or banned and the failure of other measures to make up for the absence of race-conscious admissions.

In Chapter 6, Rudi Kimmie and Laura Dudley Jenkins trace a long historical relationship between power, control, and education in South Africa. During the era of the Nationalist government (1948–1994), power and control through the apartheid system of governance shaped the curriculum and educational system. After 1994 and the onset of democracy, transformation, through a raft of educational policy documents, was a means of affirming the social, political, and economic aspirations of the newly enfranchised. The massive mandate and expectations of political transformation, economic redress, and social justice continue to shape affirmative action in education in the South African context. An enabling constitutional framework gave rise to many different models at various educational institutions. These include “bridging,” alternative access, and academic support programs, which have facilitated access and provided educational opportunities to millions of students. This chapter concludes with a case study of the implementation of the UNITE (University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Intensive for Engineers) alternative access program. Such programs are a wide-ranging form of affirmative action, providing access and academic support to learners from socioeconomic and educationally disadvantaged backgrounds to enable them to study engineering. Kimmie and Jenkins note the challenges as well as highlight the advantages to both students and institutions that a well-managed affirmative action program can bring.

Brazil, with the largest black population outside of Nigeria and having never had de jure racial segregation, has been grappling with how race and color affect higher education access. In 2001, the state legislature of Rio de Janeiro required affirmative action for black and mixed-race students at two public universities. This program consisted of quotas (e.g. 40 percent of spots are for black or “pardo” [mixed-race] students). The Rio legislators were responding to calls for greater social equality and fewer racial disparities in education, status, and employment. Several other public universities in Brazil also have voted to use similar quota systems. In Chapte...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of contributors
• Series editors’ introduction
• Acknowledgements
• 1 National vicissitudes in higher education affirmative action policies
• 2 Assessing affirmative action programs on six continents
• 3 India: beginning a new debate on reserved admissions for castes, tribes and “Other Backward Classes”
• 4 Bulgaria: social justice and privileged access to higher education in a totalitarian society, 1944–1989
• 5 The United States: the changing context of access to higher education
• 6 South Africa: affirming affirmative action through university alternate access programs
• 7 Brazil: enhancing opportunity and justice through new affirmative action policies for black and mixed-race students
• 8 France: affirmative action in French higher education – squaring the circle
• 9 Affirmative action matters: social justice in the era of diversity
• Appendix: sources for the study of affirmative action in higher education around the world
• Index