Discriminatory Policies and Their Effects on the Postsecondary Educational Pathways of Undocumented Students: A Critical Discrimination Perspective

• In Event: 46.037 - Toward Justice: Role of Policy in Shaping Contexts, Praxis, and Higher Education Access for Undocumented Students

Abstract

In the last decade we have witnessed fierce debates and an active policymaking environment in the area of postsecondary education benefits for undocumented students (Dougherty, Nienhusser, & Vega, 2010; Olivas, 2012). According to the National Immigration Law Center (2014), the 2014 legislative session has thus far seen 19 states introduce nearly 50 bills in the area of postsecondary education benefits for undocumented students. This policymaking environment, as Olivas (2004) described, is an ever-changing patchwork of federal, state, and local level actions that often operate in tandem. Notably, we have seen the inaction of policymakers to pass policies that provide higher education benefits or enactment of policies that discriminate against and deter undocumented students from enrolling in higher education. Additionally, only 19 states guarantee undocumented students in-state resident tuition, and a mere five states allow this group of students to receive state aid (Institute for Higher Education Law and Governance, 2014). At the local level, the manner higher education institutions are implementing policies may have influenced practices that prevent undocumented students from enrolling in higher education (Nienhusser, 2014).

Although undocumented students face significant barriers due to restrictive policies and practices, rarely are these policies and practices described as discriminatory. While the role of discrimination has been explored in several contexts (e.g., race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality), that conversation rarely incorporates immigration status. This part of the symposium will explore barriers faced by undocumented students through a critical perspective of discrimination and prejudice in their attempts to enroll in higher education. Through this perspective, researchers and practitioners are able to accurately name what “restrictive” barriers actually mean–the purposeful denial of resources that would ensure academic and social success for undocumented students. In doing this, we begin to attribute the effects of these policies and practices to institutionalized discrimination rather than problematize undocumented students.

Recently, researchers have begun to document episodes and effects of microaggressions experienced during undocumented students’ college choice process (Nienhusser, Vega, & Saavedra, 2013; Vega, Nienhusser, & Saavedra, 2014). This paper seeks to extend that scholarship to describe the ways policies and practices are intentionally harmful to undocumented students, particularly in relation to their college access. While the microaggressions framework describes the private nature of discrimination faced by undocumented students, documenting the effects will move these private interactions into the public sphere with the hopes that anti-undocumented immigrant policies will be reviewed for what they are–acts of discrimination with the intentions to hurt a vulnerable population.

Authors

• Blanca E. Elizabeth Vega, Teachers College, Columbia University

• H. Kenny Nienhusser, University of Hartford