Socioeconomic Disadvantage in Admissions

Extracted Attributes

• Goal

  Achieve meritocracy and address systemic barriers to opportunity

• Purpose

  To promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in college admissions

• Mechanism

  Prioritizes an applicant's socioeconomic status over race

• Legal Status

  Legally defensible framework for promoting diversity

• Factors Considered

  Household income, parental education levels, neighborhood resources

• Impact on Students

  Creates pathways for individuals from economically disadvantaged backgrounds

Timeline

• Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) sued Harvard University, alleging discrimination against Asian Americans in undergraduate admissions practices. (Source: wikipedia)

  2013

• A U.S. district court judge upheld Harvard's limited use of race as a factor in admissions, citing lack of evidence of 'discriminatory animus' or 'conscious prejudice'. (Source: wikipedia)

  2019

• The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed the district court's ruling. (Source: wikipedia)

  2020

• SFFA petitioned the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case. (Source: wikipedia)

  2021

• The Supreme Court issued a decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, ruling that race-based affirmative action programs in most college admissions violate the Equal Protection Clause, effectively ending race-based admissions and prompting discussion on socioeconomic disadvantage as a more equitable approach. (Source: summary, wikipedia, related_documents)

  2023-06-29

Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard

Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, 600 U.S. 181 (2023), is a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court ruling that race-based affirmative action programs in most college admissions violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. With its companion case, Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina, the Supreme Court effectively overruled Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) and Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), which validated some affirmative action in college admissions provided that race had a limited role in decisions. In 2013, Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) sued Harvard University in U.S. District Court in Boston, alleging that the university's undergraduate admission practices violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by discriminating against Asian Americans. In 2019, a district court judge upheld Harvard's limited use of race as a factor in admissions, citing lack of evidence of "discriminatory animus" or "conscious prejudice". In 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed the district court's ruling. In 2021, SFFA petitioned the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case. After the appointment of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a member of the Harvard Board of Overseers at the time, the cases were split, with Jackson recusing from the Harvard case while participating in the North Carolina one. On June 29, 2023, the Supreme Court issued a decision in Harvard that, by a vote of 6–2, reversed the lower court ruling. In the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts held that affirmative action in college admissions is unconstitutional. Because of the absence of U.S. military academies in the cases, the lack of relevant lower court rulings, and the potentially distinct interests that the military academies may present, the Court, limited by Article III, did not decide the fate of race-based affirmative action in military academies.

Web Search Results

• The Case for Socioeconomic-Based Affirmative Action

  This approach prioritizes an applicant’s socioeconomic status over race, offering a legally defensible framework for promoting diversity while addressing systemic barriers to opportunity. By considering factors like household income, parental education levels, and neighborhood resources, institutions can create pathways for individuals from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, many of whom belong to marginalized racial and ethnic groups.Socioeconomic-based approaches also promote holistic diversity. Unlike race-conscious admissions, which have faced legal challenges, socioeconomic-based affirmative action offers a more holistic approach to achieving diversity goals. Implementing socioeconomic-based affirmative action requires concerted efforts from federal agencies, academic institutions, and policymakers. Overall, socioeconomic-based affirmative action offers a promising approach to promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in federal practices and beyond.

• The Impact of Socioeconomic Factors on University Admissions

  Students from low socioeconomic backgrounds often face limited access to educational resources, which can hinder their academic performance. Limited access to resources can negatively impact academic performance, making it more challenging for students from low socioeconomic backgrounds to gain admission to universities. Limited access to extracurricular activities and internships can hinder the chances of students from low socioeconomic backgrounds in the university admissions process. Affirmative action policies can provide a fairer admissions process, offering students from low socioeconomic backgrounds a greater chance of entering top-tier universities. By addressing the economic disparities in admission rates, institutions can promote a more inclusive education system and create opportunities for students from all backgrounds to excel. * Students from low-income backgrounds may lack access to educational resources, affecting their academic performance and admission prospects.

• Income and Access to Higher Education: Are High Quality ...

  Evidence suggests that access to higher education in the United States has beome more stratified in recent decades, with a growing concentration of wealthy students attending the most selective of colleges and access to the best institutions of higher learning increasingly constrained for low-income college hopefuls (Bailey and Dynarski 2011; Bowen, Kurzweil, and Tobin 2005; Carnevale and Rose 2004; Khadaroo 2008). We believe that universities, systems, and researchers can benefit from investigating whether low-income students are missing from their applicant pools, likely to be excluded as a result of admissions policies, or failing to matriculate, and how access and representation at these different points of the college-going process has evolved over time.

• Socioeconomic Preference in Elite College Admissions - Ivy Coach

  At its heart, the Ivy Coach blog seeks to dispel major misconceptions about the elite college admissions process. And one of the biggest misconceptions that just does not seem to go away is that Ivy league schools and other highly selective colleges only seek to admit students of high socioeconomic status. Quite interestingly, admission to the Ivy League is the least likely, when controlled for SAT test scores, for middle class students, a.k.a. those whose parents have incomes between the 65th and 90th income distribution percentiles. They probably need some financial aid in order to attend elite schools, but will not earn an Ivy League university the good publicity of admitting a lower-income student who needs full financial aid.

• [PDF] Diversifying Society's Leaders? The Determinants and Causal ...

  Appendix Figure 23: Association Between Post-College Outcomes and Admissions Criteria among Ivy-Plus Matriculants (a) Association Between Predicted Top 1% Earnings and Admissions Criteria +3.9 +0.7 -0.2 -0.2 Baseline = 11.6% 10% 12% 14% 16% Predicted Earnings in Top 1% Based on Age 25 Employer Legacy Athlete High Non-Academic Rating High Academic Rating (b) Association Between Elite Graduate School Attendance and Admissions Criteria +8.2 +0.5 -5.4 -1.8 Baseline = 7.5% 0 5% 10% 15% 20% Attending Elite Grad School Legacy Athlete High Non-Academic Rating High Academic Rating (c) Association Between Prestigious Firm Employment and Admissions Criteria +9.9 +1.0 -6.8 -1.4 Baseline = 33.3% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% Working at a Prestigious Firm Legacy Athlete High Non-Academic Rating High Academic Rating Notes: Appendix Figure 23 replicates the “Raw Comparison” estimates from Figure 16a, except restricting to the students who attended the Ivy-Plus college with the most granular ratings information (i.e., focusing on attendees, not all applicants).