By Scott Etkin
This week, Columbia University President Minouche Shafik announced a preliminary plan for adjusting the university’s admissions procedures and policies in light of the United States Supreme Court’s decision earlier this summer to end affirmative action in higher education.
The June 29 ruling declared it unconstitutional for schools to have admissions policies, like affirmative action, that favor applicants from groups that are traditionally considered disadvantaged or subject to discrimination, such as people of color and women. The decision coincided with the university’s transition to Shafik from outgoing president, Lee C. Bollinger, who called the ruling “tragic.”
Shafik’s first step focuses on gathering information about the university’s existing admission processes in order to identify opportunities for creating diversity. A working group, led by Interim Provost Dennis Mitchell and comprising the university’s three undergraduate deans and other graduate and professional school deans, began in August to review current admissions procedures across all schools at a high level.
Admissions policies are normally made at the school level, Shafik explained in a letter to the Columbia community. “This University-level focus will allow us to share information and insights and to learn from each other as we adjust to the new landscape,” she wrote. The working group is expected to deliver a set of recommendations by December.
The plan also calls on Columbia to “examine existing pipeline and pathway programs and to think about ways we might alter or expand these programs to reach more potential students. To the greatest extent possible, we want to welcome students from local public high schools, community colleges, and other public institutions into our undergraduate and professional schools,” Shafik wrote.
While the findings and recommendations from these committees won’t be known for some time, an interim change has already taken place. Inside Higher Ed reported that more than two dozen schools, including Columbia, have revised or added supplemental questions concerning diversity to their applications.
Columbia’s new essay prompt asks applicants to write about their own experiences in the context of the school’s diverse community: “A hallmark of the Columbia experience is being able to learn and thrive in an equitable and inclusive community with a wide range of perspectives. Tell us about an aspect of your own perspective, viewpoint or lived experience that is important to you, and describe how it has shaped the way you would learn from and contribute to Columbia’s diverse and collaborative community.”
It remains to be seen if more substantial changes, like Virginia Tech’s elimination of its early-decision option and legacy-admissions preferences, might also reach Columbia.
“It will take time for us to develop and refine this new approach,” wrote Shafik. “But I promise a sustained commitment, including securing the resources necessary for meaningful impact, to ensure Columbia remains a beacon for generations of future students.”
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Seems like a good workaround.
Workaround. They want to continue an unconstitutional practice of discrimination.. Expect more lawsuits.
I am supportive of encouraging diversity and the values of this. But I am glad that the Supreme Court ruled as it did. Giving significant admissions preference solely because someone could check a box is ridiculous – I know countless minority children of Ivy-educated Wall Street millionaires who have not been deprived of opportunity. These programs should be targeted more towards socioeconomic diversity, which often tends to overlap heavily with racial diversity.
That being said, I find it sad that this easy is so narrowly focused on being “equitable and inclusive.” There should be an avenue for applicants to write about these topics, but they should not be shoved down their throats in this way.
I am a devoted Democrat but I do not think that college essays should be coming straight out of the DEI playbook. If this was one of several essay topics an applicant can chose from, then I think it is fine as it gives voice to those for whom this is important and applicable. But if it is the only one, I am greatly troubled by it.
Applicants always need to write more than one easy for submission. Also keep in mind that the easy is asking for any life experience which might be important. For some, this might be overcoming racial prejudices, for others it could be a death in the family, travel to a different culture, or anything else that might be formative.
” Tell us about an aspect of your own perspective, viewpoint or lived experience that is important to you”
I had to read this word salad twice to make sense of it. They couldn’t have just said “Write about a meaningful experience or idea you had”?
Of course the second half of the prompt clearly implies you have to write about how oh-so-very diverse you are, so really nothing has changed that much.
It sounds like Columbia is engaging in some kind of massive resistance to a Supreme Court ruling on race. The goal may be laudable, but the means are getting even more problematic.
“Lived experience ” is a popular woke catchphrase
Seems like a great start!
In other news Columbia and about 20 other colleges lose $250 million in a Class Action Lawsuit brought by Asian Moms. 😁
I would be heartbroken if I found out I got my job because I’m a woman. I like to think it’s because I’m good at what I do
What if it’s both? I certainly have had that experience?
Ha. I recall some 25 years ago at an interview being asked if I was married – married women want to go home – not work late and have babies – I declined the job. So more likely you don’t get the job because you are a woman – has it changed?
How would you feel if you were denied a job because you’re a woman, which is historically the case, and the reason affirmative action was mandated in the first place? Employers and institutions could not be counted on to not discriminate.
I don’t know you but i’m sure you got the job because you were predicted to be good at it. After the dust settles, bosses want competence above all else.
Do you work in corporate America? I have numerous times been required to interview or hire someone because of they were female, a minority, a veteran, related to or a friend of a senior manager, or whatever else.
Heterosexual, unconnected white men have a very hard time getting a job these days. I know no one is throwing them a pity party as they have received lots of benefits for many years but we seem to be swinging too far in the other direction.
Policies to help others should be in place when all things are relatively equal, but that is not what is actually happening.
I’m a woman in corporate America, I lead a team. I have the same experience interviewing those forced on us by politically-correct HR. I’m struggling to find appropriately sounding reasons to explain why most of them are not a good fit. I can’t say lack of pertinent experience, not a team player or overall unqualified. If I do say something like that, I’d be told to hire and train them.
Life should be fair and admissions should be based on merit but this is not a realistic position in the USA in 2023. Slavery, discrimination, redlining, structural racism, and the ability to accumulate generational wealth have benefited some of us and hurt others. When we rectify all of the inequities then we can talk about getting rid of affirmative action.
Columbia’s student body has been 4 to 5 percent African American for years, don’t think the SC decision will change that racial make-up one bit.
Hopefully we will go back to a merit system where only the best and brightest will be admitted.
This may not work for Columbia, but Georgia Tech, a state school, admits the top two students from all every High School in the state. Why can’t Columbia do the same, perhaps limit it to the city? Seems fair to me. And of course, eliminate preferences to athletes, children of alumni and staff.
And eliminate/remove all Supreme Court justices who were admitted to a college due to affirmative action.