RIC Fall Kick-Off Event & Reception: What Comes Next: Racism, Immigration, and Citizenship After Affirmative Action

Description

Over the past half-century, historically white universities have experimented with diversifying their student and faculty bodies within the U. S. Supreme Court's increasingly narrow definition of affirmative action. In summer 2023, the court ended altogether the diversity regime it created. Now, universities must ask: What comes next?

In the coming academic year, the Program in Racism, Immigration, and Citizenship (RIC) explores why affirmative action's "diversity" regime remained both essential and deficient in shaping higher education. In the view of many, affirmative action proved inadequate for challenging the legacies of economic inequality, white supremacy, gender disparity, and segregation. For others, affirmative action revolutionized universities in the 1960s and, even by the 1990s, continued to open higher education to U.S.-born women and aspiring professionals descended from the formerly colonized world. The actual legal battle over affirmative action dredged up ancient tropes, some as old as the modern university itself, about merit, racism, and the rewards American colleges promise. It falls to us to sort out this history and to map out a future for our learning communities.

Join the RIC for brief presentations and a reception with food and drink to kick off this year's programming, featuring RIC Director N. D. B. Connolly, RIC graduate fellow Sheharyar Imran, and RIC undergraduate fellow Natalie Wang.