Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T11:18:50.404Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Embracing Diversity: The Institutionalization of Affirmative Action as Diversity Management at UC-Berkeley, UT-Austin, and UW-Madison

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Daniel N. Lipson
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

While affirmative action in universities is the subject of extensive empirical scholarship, little research has been conducted on the role of university officials in crafting, defending, and transforming race-based affirmative admissions. Through forty-five in-depth interviews with thirty-nine admissions officials and top administrators at three selective public universities between 1999 and 2004, this study uncovers how a near-consensus in favor of race-based affirmative action has emerged among these players. Whereas scholars, citizens, and activists debate the morality and legality of race-based affirmative action as an equal opportunity policy, admissions decision makers have come to view race-based affirmative action in addition as a central, diversity management technique. This article claims that interest group capture theory and judicial implementation theory are insufficient to explain the diversity consensus. I suggest that neoinstitutional organizational theory has great potential to describe and situate the thought processes leading these key actors to forge this policy transformation.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 32 , Issue 4 , Fall 2007 , pp. 985 - 1026
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2007 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

American Council on Education. 2000. Does Diversity Make a Difference? Three Research Studies on Diversity in College Classrooms. Washington, DC: American Council on Education and American Association of University Professors.Google Scholar
Committee on Institutional Cooperation. 2001. Advancing Diversity / Achieving Excellence. http://www.cic.uiuc.edu/groups/CICMembers/archive/WhitePaper/AdvancingDiversity_files/AdvancingDiversity.htm (accessed September 12, 2001).Google Scholar
Atkinson, Richard C. 2001. Standardized Tests and Access to American Universities. http://www.ucop.edu/ucophome/pres/comments/satspch.html (accessed May 31, 2001).Google Scholar
BAMN. 1996. Force Chancellor Tien to Defy Prop. 209! Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action and Integration & Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary. http://www.bamn.com/doc/1996/961116-flyer.htm (accessed March 29, 1996).Google Scholar
Barrows, Paul. 2000. Interview, July 5.Google Scholar
Berdahl, Robert. 1998. From Chancellor Robert Berdahl. Berkeleyan, March 4. http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/1998/0304/admissions2.html.Google Scholar
Berdahl, Robert. 2000. Interview, March 17.Google Scholar
Bhagat, Geeta Srinivasan. 2004. The Relationship between Factors That Influence College Choice and Persistence in Longhorn Opportunity Scholarship Recipients at the University of Texas at Austin: University of Texas at Austin, PhD diss., Department of Educational Administration, The University of Texas at Austin.Google Scholar
Bok, Derek, and Bowen, William G. 1998. The Shape of the River: Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions: Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Brady, Patricia. 2002. Interview, May 15.Google Scholar
Burt, Larry. 2000. Interview, January 20.Google Scholar
Campfield, N. Zeke. 2001. Regents Debate Admissions Process. Badger Herald, September 7.Google Scholar
Canon, Bradley C., and Johnson, Charles A. 1999. Judicial Policies: Implementation and Impact, 2nd ed. Washington, DC: CQ Press.Google Scholar
Carver, Larry. 2000. Interview, January 19.Google Scholar
Chavez, Lydia. 1998. The Color Bind: California's Battle to End Affirmative Action. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Chubb, John E., and Moe, Terry M. 1990. Politics, Markets, and America's Schools. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Citrin, Jack. 1999a. Desperately Seeking Diversity. Berkeleyan, March 28, 1.Google Scholar
Citrin, Jack. 1999b. Interview, August 20.Google Scholar
Cokorinos, Lee. 2003. The Assault on Diversity: An Organized Challenge to Racial and Gender Justice. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Connerly, Ward. 2000. Creating Equal: My Fight against Race Preferences. San Francisco: Encounter Books.Google Scholar
Connerly, Ward. 2002. Interview, June 11.Google Scholar
Connerly, Ward. 2004. Interview, May 6.Google Scholar
Detlefsen, Robert R. 1991. Civil Rights under Reagan. San Francisco: ICS Press.Google Scholar
Digeser, Peter. 1992. The Fourth Face of Power. Journal of Politics 54 (4): 977–92.Google Scholar
DiMaggio, Paul J., and Powell, Walter W. 1991. The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organization Fields. In The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Douglass, John A. 1997. A Short History of U.C. Admissions. Berkeley, CA: Center for Studies on Higher Education.Google Scholar
Douglass, John A. 1999. The Evolution of a Social Contract: The University of California before and in the Aftermath of Affirmative Action. European Journal of Education 34 (4): 393–412.Google Scholar
Edelman, Lauren B., and Suchman, Mark C. 1997. The Legal Environments of Organizations. Annual Review of Sociology 23:479–515.Google Scholar
Edelman, Lauren B., , Sally Riggs Fuller, and Mara-Drita, Iona. 2001. Diversity Rhetoric and the Managerialization of Law. American Journal of Sociology 106 (6): 1589–641.Google Scholar
Edelman, Lauren B., Petterson, Stephen, Chambliss, Elizabeth, and Erlanger, Howard S. 1991. Legal Ambiguity and the Politics of Compliance: Affirmative Action Officers’ Dilemma. Law & Policy 13:73–97.Google Scholar
Edelman, Murray J. 1985. The Symbolic Uses of Politics, 2nd ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel, and Gordon, Colin. 1980. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Franchot, Jenny. 1997. Letter from the Chair of the 1997–98 Committee on Admissions, Enrollment & Preparatory Education. Berkeley: University of California.Google Scholar
Garrison, Jessica. 2002. Irresistible Force of a Teacher's Will. Los Angeles Times, April 21, A1, A28–A29.Google Scholar
Gates, Robert M. 2003. Statement by Texas A&M President Robert M. Gates. A http://www.tamu.edu/president/speeches/031203admissions.html (accessed June 29, 2003).Google Scholar
Gladieux, Lawrence E. 1996. A Diverse Student Body: The Challenge of Equalizing College Opportunities. Journal of College Admission Summer/Fall: 152–53.Google Scholar
Green, Denise O'Neil. 2004. Justice and Diversity: Michigan's Response to Gratz, Grutter, and the Affirmative Action Debate. Urban Education 39 (4): 374–93.Google Scholar
Gurin, Patricia. 2004. Defending Diversity: Affirmative Action at the University of Michigan. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Hansen, W. Lee. 1999a. Interview, April 19.Google Scholar
Hansen, W. Lee. 1999b. On the U.W. System's Continuing Quest for Greater Race and Ethnic Diversity: Prepared for the Meeting of the Education Committee, University of Wisconsin Board of Regents. Madison: University of Wisconsin-Madison.Google Scholar
Hansen, W. Lee. 2001. Letter to the Board of Regents on UW-Madison Admission Brochure. http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~whansen/admi_let.html (accessed July 21, 2001).Google Scholar
Hansen, W. Lee. 2002. Interview, June 26.Google Scholar
Hanson, Gary R., and Burt, Lawrence. 2002. Responding to Hopwood: Using Policy Analysis Research to Re-Design Scholarship Criteria. http://www.utexas.edu/student/research/reports/Hopwood/Hopwood.html#simulating (accessed March 6, 2002).Google Scholar
Hayashi, Pat. 2000. Interview, March 14.Google Scholar
Hebel, Sara. 2002. Civil-Rights Panel Says Class-Rank Admissions Plans Fail to Increase Campus Diversity. Chronicle of Higher Education, November 20. http://chronicle.com/daily/2002/11/2002112002n.htm.Google Scholar
Heyman, Ira Michael. 2000. Interview, March 17.Google Scholar
Holley, Danielle, and Spencer, Delia. 1999. The Texas Ten Percent Plan. Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review 34:245–78.Google Scholar
Holzer, Harry. 2000. Assessing Affirmative Action. Journal of Economic Literature 38 (3): 483–568.Google Scholar
Holzer, Harry J., and Neumark, David. 2000. What Does Affirmative Action Do? Industrial & Labor Relations Review 53 (2): 240–71.Google Scholar
Horn, Catherine L., and Flores, Stella M. 2003. Percent Plans in College Admissions: A Comparative Analysis of Three States’ Experiences. http://www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/research/affirmativeaction/tristate.pdf (accessed February 3, 2003).Google Scholar
Johanson, Stanley. 2000. Interview, January 19.Google Scholar
Kane, Thomas J. 1998. Misconceptions in the Debate over Affirmative Action in College Admissions. In Chilling Admissions: The Affirmative Action Crisis and the Search for Alternatives, ed. Orfield, Gary and Miller, Edward. Cambridge, MA: The Civil Rights Project.Google Scholar
Karabel, Jerome. 1989. Freshman Admissions at Berkeley: A Policy for the 1990s and Beyond. A Report of the Committee on Admissions and Enrollment, Berkeley Division, Academic Senate, University of California. Berkeley: University of California at Berkeley.Google Scholar
Karabel, Jerome. 2005. The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Keck, Tom. 2006. From Bakke to Grutter: The Rise of Rights-Based Conservatism. In The Supreme Court and American Political Development, ed. Kahn, Ronald and Kersch, Ken I. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
Kelly, Erin, and Dobbin, Frank. 1998. How Affirmative Action Became Diversity Management: Employer Response to Antidiscrimination Law, 1961 to 1996. American Behavioral Scientist 41 (7): 960–84.Google Scholar
Kuran, Timur. 1995. Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Laird, Bob. 1999. Interview, August 20.Google Scholar
Laird, Bob. 2002. Bending Admissions to Political Ends. The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 17, B11.Google Scholar
Laird, Bob. 2005. The Case for Affirmative Action in University Admissions: Berkeley, CA: Bay Tree Publishing.Google Scholar
Lancaster, Andre. 2000. Interview, January 21.Google Scholar
Lemann, Nicholas. 1999. The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy, 1st ed. New York: Farrar Straus and Giroux.Google Scholar
Lempert, Richard O., Chambers, David L., and Adams, Terry K. 2000. Michigan's Minority Graduates in Practice: The River Runs through Law School. Law & Social Inquiry 25 (2): 395–505.Google Scholar
Lipson, Daniel N. 2001. Affirmative Action as We Don't Know It: The Rise of Individual Assessment in Undergraduate Admissions at UC-Berkeley and UT-Austin. In Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, ed. Sarat, Austin and Ewick, Patricia, 137–84. New York: Elsevier Science Ltd.Google Scholar
Lowi, Theodore J. 1979. The End of Liberalism: The Second Republic of the United States, 2nd ed. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Lucas, John. 2006. UW-Madison's Posse Program Celebrates First Graduates. http://www.news.wisc.edu/releases/12489.html (accessed April 21, 2006).Google Scholar
Lukes, Steven. 1974. Power: A Radical View, Studies in Sociology. London and New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Lynch, Frederick R. 1997. The Diversity Machine: The Drive to Change the “White Male Workplace.” New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
March, James G., and Olsen, Johan P. 1976. Ambiguity and Choice in Organizations. Bergen, Germany: Universitetsforlaget.Google Scholar
March, James G., and Olsen, Johan P. 1984. The New Institutionalism: Organizational Factors in Political Life. American Political Science Review 78 (3): 734–49.Google Scholar
Meier, Kenneth J. 1988. The Political Economy of Regulation: The Case of Insurance, S.U.N.Y. Series in Public Administration. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Menge, Margaret. 2001. Race-Based Admissions in Question. Badger Herald, September 5.Google Scholar
Moe, Terry M. 1984. The New Economics of Organization. American Journal of Political Science 28:739–77.Google Scholar
Mohs, Fred. 2002. Interview, July 12.Google Scholar
Montejano, David. 2001. Access to the University of Texas at Austin and the Ten Percent Plan: A Three-Year Assessment. http://www.utexas.edu/student/research/reports/admissions/Montejanopaper.htm (accessed October 24, 2001).Google Scholar
Munkatchy, Jamie. 2000. Interview, January 20.Google Scholar
Naff, Katherine C. 2004. From Bakke to Grutter and Gratz: The Supreme Court as a Policymaking Institution. Review of Policy Research 21 (3): 405–27.Google Scholar
National Association for College Admission Counseling. 2001. Affirmative Action in College Admission. http://www.nacac.com/aapaper.pdf (accessed September 12, 2001).Google Scholar
National Association of Scholars. 1999. National Faculty Survey Regarding the Use of Sexual and Racial Preferences in Higher Education. Conducted by Roper Center for Public Opinion Research. http://www.nas.org/reports/roper/exsum.htm (accessed March 20, 1999).Google Scholar
Nguyen, Kevin. 2001. Interview, March 14.Google Scholar
Ostrom, Elinor. 1991. Rational Choice Theory and Institutional Analysis: Toward Complementarity. American Political Science Review 85:237–43.Google Scholar
Paredes, Ruby. 2004. Interview, August 20.Google Scholar
Powell, Walter W., and DiMaggio, Paul. 1991a. Introduction. In The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Powell, Walter W., and DiMaggio, Paul. 1991b. The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Pusser, Brian. 2004. Burning Down the House: Politics, Governance, and Affirmative Action at the University of California, S.U.N.Y. Series, Frontiers in Education. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Reich, Robert B. 1988. The Power of Public Ideas. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger.Google Scholar
Rhodes, Frank H. T. 1999. College by the Numbers. New York Times, December 24.Google Scholar
Robinson, Nina. 2000. Interview, March 14.Google Scholar
Rogers-Dillon, Robin, and Skrentny, John. 1999. Administering Success: The Legitimacy Imperative and the Implementation of Welfare Reform. Social Problems 46:13–29.Google Scholar
Rowley, Charles Kershaw. 1993. Public Choice Theory (The International Library of Critical Writings in Economics), 3 vols. Altershot, Hants, and Brookfield, VT: E. Elgar Publishers.Google Scholar
Ruszkiewicz, John. 2000. Interview, January 18.Google Scholar
Sanchez, Rene. 1996. Struggling to Maintain Diversity. Washington Post, March 11, A01.Google Scholar
Schuck, Peter H. 2003. Diversity in America: Keeping Government at a Safe Distance. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Schultze, Charles L. 1977. The Public Use of Private Interest. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Selingo, Jeffrey. 1998. Affirmative-Action Plan for the ’90s? Wisconsin Tries for Diversity without Numerical Goals. Chronicle of Higher Education, May 8, A40–41.Google Scholar
Seltzer, Rob. 2000. Interview, July 20.Google Scholar
Selznick, Philip. 1949. T.V.A. And the Grass Roots; a Study in the Sociology of Formal Organization, University of California Publications in Culture and Society, vol. 3. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Shiao, Jiannbin Lee. 2005. Identifying Talent, Institutionalizing Diversity: Race and Philanthropy in Post-Civil Rights America. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Skrentny, John David. 1996. The Ironies of Affirmative Action: Politics, Culture, and Justice in America, Morality and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Skrentny, John David. 2002. The Minority Rights Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Jay. 2001. UW Regents Remain Committed to Diversity. Wisconsin State Journal, January 21, B2.Google Scholar
Sniderman, Paul M., and Carmines, Edward G. 1997. Reaching Beyond Race. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Steeh, Charlotte, and Krysan, Maria. 1996. The Polls-Trends: Affirmative Action and the Public, 1970–1995. Political Opinion Quarterly 60 (1): 128–58.Google Scholar
Stigler, George J. 1971. The Theory of Economic Regulation. Bell Journal of Economics 2 (1): 3–21.Google Scholar
Stohr, Greg. 2004. A Black and White Case: How Affirmative Action Survived Its Greatest Legal Challenge. Princeton, NJ: Bloomberg Press.Google Scholar
Teske, Paul. 2003. State Regulation: Captured Victorian-Era Anachronism or “Re-Enforcing” Autonomous Structure? Perspectives 1 (2): 291–306.Google Scholar
The Pew Center for the People and the Press. 2003. Conflicted Views of Affirmative Action. Washington, DC: The Pew Center for the People and the Press.Google Scholar
The Posse Foundation, Inc. 2007. The Posse Foundation. http://www.possefoundation.org (accessed May 31, 2007).Google Scholar
Thernstrom, Stephan, and Thernstrom, Abigail M. 1997. America in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Torres, Gerald. 2000. Interview, January 18.Google Scholar
University of Michigan. 2005. Statements by University Leaders & Others. http://www.umich.edu/~urel/admissions/statements/ (accessed March 25, 2005).Google Scholar
University of Texas. 2003. University's Admission Policy to Include Consideration of Race. http://www.utexas.edu/opa/news/03newsreleases/nr_200308/nr_admission030828.html (accessed August 23, 2003).Google Scholar
University of Wisconsin-Madison. 2006. People–Pre-College Enrichment Opportunity Program for Learning Excellence. http://www.peopleprogram.wisc.edu (accessed November 11, 2006).Google Scholar
Walker, R. Bruce. 2000. Interview, January 18.Google Scholar
Walt, Kathy. 1997. Professor's Words Prompt Irate Reactions–U.T. Officials Decry Anti-Diversity Views as State Legislators Call for Resignation. Houston Chronicle (Austin Bureau), September 11.Google Scholar
Welch, Susan, and Gruhl, John. 1998. Affirmative Action and Minority Enrollments in Medical and Law Schools. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Wellborn, Guy. 2000. Interview, January 19.Google Scholar
White, Keith. 1999. Interview, June 22.Google Scholar
White, Keith. 2002. Interview, June 20.Google Scholar
Wiley, John. 2002a. Chancellor's Analysis of the Data. http://www.chancellor.wisc.edu/view.html?get=chan_analysis (accessed July 10, 2002).Google Scholar
Wiley, John. 2002b. Interview, July 11.Google Scholar
Wilson, James Q. 1980. The Politics of Regulation. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Wilson, James Q. 1999. Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It. Ed. Gerber, Mitchel. Guilford, CT: Duskin/McGraw Hill.Google Scholar
Wolfinger, Raymond E. 1974. The Politics of Progress. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar