Chapter 6: Diversity Mission Statement Inclusion as Social Capital: How the Language of Appeasement Fails Egalitarian Goals in Postsecondary Institutions

Institutions of higher education (IHEs) in the United States have made numerous, varied, and longitudinal attempts at diversifying student bodies, thereby imbuing the rapidly diversifying U.S. population with valuable social capital and the earning power of a college degree. Following the lead of the Brown v. Board decision, race-conscious admissions policies were implemented by three public institutions—the University of California at Davis, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and the University of Texas at Austin—subsequently generating five Supreme Court decisions (Bakke, Gratz, Grutter, Fisher I, and Fisher II), all of which have informed institutions across the country on who may be included on a college campus through formal admissions processes. In recent years, need-blind (Morris, 2016; Sutton, 2016) and test-blind (Stewart, 2016) or test-optional (Furuta, 2017) admissions policies have been evaluated and implemented by various public and private institutions to better produce a diverse campus population, ostensibly allowing for a more equitable distribution of social capital across marginalized populations and underprivileged groups.