Embracing Racial Equity Throughout All Parts of Higher Education

On the fourth stop of New America's Affirmative Action Listening Tour Talk Series, we chatted with David Hawkins, National Association for College Admissions Counseling’s (NACAC) Chief Education and Policy Officer. David has worked in higher education admissions and enrollment management for 20+ years. Therefore, hearing that race-conscious admissions practices are causing an uproar again is not new to him, as he had tackled this issue before when the court heard challenges to affirmative action in Fisher v. Texas and Grutter v. Bollinger.

In typical Listening Tour Talk fashion, we started the conversation by asking David, “What interested him in higher education policy?” He did not hesitate to say that his mother’s experience as an early educator helped shape his belief that students, regardless of their background, should have access to a high-quality education that will help them grow and succeed. However, David quickly acknowledged that not all students, especially students from underrepresented and minority backgrounds, can access the equal opportunity to achieve a higher education degree when issues of structural racism and discrimination continue to exist within many of our institutions.

Further into the conversation, David highlights how universities and colleges should be committed to racial equity with or without a ban on affirmative action, noting that some higher education institutions are long overdue on their commitment. He also notes that the work to achieve racial equity does not happen overnight or by simply addressing it within your institution’s mission statement.

Finally, David closes the interview by uplifting a few of NACAC’s tools, including their report, Toward a More Equitable Future for Postsecondary Access. This report can be an advocacy guide for admission professionals and institution leaders ready to embark on the “marathon” of advancing equity and alleviating barriers for students of color to access higher education.

Here are some additional highlights from our Listening Tour Talk with David Hawkins:

• “What fundamentally interests me in the work is NACAC’s core belief in education as a great advancer, a great equalizer, and a great opportunity for so many people. Yet, for so many people, that opportunity gets foreclosed at one point or another by the systems in place and the inequities embedded in many parts of our society. “

• “There are no states that say, we want to throttle back postsecondary enrollment. Every state that talks about education wants to see increased enrollment at the postsecondary level. We're not going to make gains at the state or federal level if we are systematically shutting out students from any segment of society, but particularly from those already underrepresented segments.”

• “On what the White House and Congress can do – it's important that our elected leaders send a public message that we are still committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion in our educational system and remedying systemic inequities related to race and ethnicity…..I think it can be critical for federal policy to look for levers that can help identify and alleviate systemic discriminatory effects. The Department of Education intends to revive the disparate impact work that the Office of Civil Rights has done before the prior administration, looking at school districts and trying to get at that systemic inequity in the K-12 system.”

To learn more, check out the entire conversation here.

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