How Student Values Uphold or Reconstruct Institutional Ones: A Critical Analysis of University Marketing Materials During the Era of Affirmative Action

• In Event: Centering Marginalized Voices in the History of Higher Education

Abstract

This study examines how diversity discourse was constructed, repackaged, and operationalized in admissions marketing at a historically women’s predominantly white institution (“Ellis College”) during the era of affirmative action. Using qualitative archival analysis of four diversity-focused pamphlets (1981–2004) and guided by Critical Race Theory, sociocultural theory, and critical discourse analysis, we identify how race-neutral diversity rhetoric centered whiteness while diminishing student critique. Values analysis revealed a persistent gap between institutional branding and the lived experiences of students of color, particularly through the emergent value of “Negotiated Resilience.” Findings illuminate how diversity was symbolically deployed to serve institutional image, with implications for equity-oriented messaging in the post–affirmative action landscape.

Authors

• Cydney Ava Socias, Smith College

• Shannon Audley, Smith College