A Critical Policy Analysis of the Supreme Court’s Ruling of Ending Affirmative Action: Implications From Underrepresented Minority Students’ Perspectives and Their College Application Experiences With the University of California

• In Event: Saturday Roundtable Session 11:25 am
  In Roundtable Session: Critical Analyses of Legal Decisions Across Settings (Table 32)

Abstract

In June 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling ended affirmative action (Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. Harvard, 2023; Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina, 2023). As a result, for fall 2024 admissions, all universities in the U.S. should adopt race-neutral admissions approaches. This critical policy analysis research is an exploratory study that understands underrepresented minority (URM) students’ perspectives on higher education admissions equity after the Supreme Court’s ruling. As California was the first state to ban affirmative action, exploring how URM students navigated their college planning and application process for the UC's race-neutral admissions system provides implications for policy, programs, and strategies to support URM students' access to higher education, especially prestigious universities.

Author

• Yufei Chen, Loyola Marymount University