Harvard Education Press

Diversity Challenged
Evidence on the Impact of Affirmative Action

Edited by Gary Orfield

In the courts and in referenda campaigns, affirmative action in college admissions is under full-scale attack. Though it was designed to help resolve a variety of serious racial problems, affirmative action's survival may turn on just one question--whether or not the educational value of diversity is sufficiently compelling to justify consideration of race as a factor in deciding whom to admit to colleges and universities. Diversity Challenged is designed to address that question.

This book explores what is known about how increasing minority enrollment changes and enriches the educational process. In chapter after chapter, researchers and policymakers discuss substantial developing evidence showing that diversity of students can and usually does produce a broader educational experience, both in traditional learning and in preparing for jobs, professions, and effective citizenship in a multiracial democracy. The evidence also suggests that such benefits can be significantly increased by appropriate leadership and support on campus. Diversity may be challenged on college campuses today, but the research and evidence in this book shows how diversity works.
—From the Introduction by Gary Orfield

About the Author:

Gary Orfield is professor of education and social policy at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Orfield is interested in the study of civil rights, education policy, urban policy, and minority opportunity. He is cofounder and director of the Civil Rights Project at Harvard, an initiative that is developing and publishing a new generation of research on multiracial civil rights issues. Orfield's central interest is the development and implementation of social policy, with a central focus on the impact of policy on equal opportunity for success in American society. Recent works include studies of changing patterns of school desegregation and the impact of diversity on the educational experiences of law students. In addition to his scholarly work, Orfield has been involved with development of governmental policy. He has participated as an expert witness of a court-appointed expert in several dozen civil rights cases, including the University of Michigan Supreme Court case that upheld the policy of affirmative action in 2003 and he has been called to give testimony in civil rights suits by the U.S. Department of Justice and many civil rights, legal services, and educational organizations. In 1997, Orfield was awarded the American Political Science Association's Charles Merriam Award for his "contribution to the art of government through the application of social science research." A native Minnesotan, Orfield received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and travels annually to Latin America, where his research work is now expanding.