Equalizing Access and the Rise of (E)quality Politics

• In Event: Does the State Work for the People?

Abstract

In policy areas as varied as education, neighborhood planning, employment, and healthcare, American political history describes a recurrent, but understudied, pattern: one in which excluded groups campaign for and gain access to a valued policy resource or good, only to be met by protestations that the newcomers will threaten the quality and desirability of the good itself. Ostensibly objective, these assessments of “quality” carry great weight in debates over how and to what extent egalitarian ends should be pursued, but they also serve to uphold the hierarchies of the era of exclusion. Through a case study of a federal education agency—the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE)--we examine the development of, what we term, (e)quality politics, or the process by which transformative equal access policies are reframed to prioritize quality-focused ends. Charged with addressing the aftermath of the student ‘equal access wave’ promulgated by the Higher Education Act of 1965, FIPSE came to reconcile competing “equality” and “quality” policy demands. Drawing on an archival record of over 6,000 pages from legislative hearings and administrative reports, our analysis charts the political development (1968-1999) of policy goals at this federal higher education agency.

We offer a theoretical model for tracing (e)quality politics: first, identifying how policy aimed at expanding access to a previously exclusive site gives rise to concerns over the enduring “quality” of that site after integration; and second, identifying the conditions under which quality concerns undermine equality demands before they have reached their logical conclusion. We illustrate how the creation of (e)quality politics stacks the deck over the long term against egalitarian actors by constructing an antagonism between the claims of newly arrived groups, which are characterized as particular, and the interests of the institution itself, which are characterized as general, and themselves created during the era of exclusion. While civil rights struggles between egalitarians and defenders of white supremacy often entail clearly visible group competition over resources, our theorization of (e)quality politics highlights a device by which avowedly disinterested, technocratic stewards continue to stymie full equality even after access is granted. In doing so, we uncover a critical explanatory perspective underpinning the retrenchment of egalitarian policy achievements in the American state.

Authors

• Quinn W. Mulroy, Northwestern University

• Heather McCambly, University of Pittsburgh