Search for: All records

Althoughaffirmativeactionincollegeadmissionsisconstitutionallypermissible,several states prohibit it. We investigate whether bans push black and Latino students fro m in-state public selective colleges to other types of postsecondary institutions, thus contributing to talent loss among these groups. Unlike most other studies, we analyze national data (the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009) so that we can follow students across state lines. We find no evidence that students from ban states shift from one type of selective college to another; that is, from in-state public flagships to in-state private ones or selective colleges in other states. However, the odds of attending a nonselective college, instead of an in-state public selective college, are al most three times higher among blacks and Latinos in ban states compared with their counterparts in states without bans. We argue that bans on affirmative action may contribute to talent loss among black and Latino students. 

During the 1990s and early 2000s, the affirmative action context in the United States changed. Affirmative action in higher education was banned in several states, and the Supreme Court ruled in Grutter (2003) that affirmative action, while constitutional, should be implemented via holistic evaluation of applicants. In this article, we use two datasets to examine how affirmative action context relates to academic outcomes at selective colleges and universities in the United States before and after the Grutter decision and in states with and without bans on affirmative action. Underrepresented minority students earned higher grades in the period after the Grutter decision than before it, indicating that the holistic evaluation method required by Grutter may enhance educational outcomes for these students. In contrast, we find no support for the idea, proposed by critics of the policy, that banning affirmative action leads to better collegiate outcomes for Black and Latino students at selective institutions.