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Survey Reports Educational Benefits of Diversity
Abandoning admissions policies that foster racial and ethnic diversity on the nation’s campuses threatens the quality of higher education, according to a study (.pdf) released in May by the AAUP and the American Council on Education (ACE).
The two-year study began when members of the AAUP’s Committee on Historically Black Institutions and the Status of Minorities in the Profession decided to develop a campus-based survey instrument to assess the impact of racial and ethnic diversity on teaching and learning. The committee saw the survey as a way to provide educational evidence in the debate over affirmative action in public higher education that has occurred over the past few years in California, Texas, Washington, and elsewhere.
Colleges and universities in these states have struggled to maintain a diverse student body in the face of legal and political prohibitions against affirmative action. The legal support for diversity in higher education stems from Justice Lewis Powell’s opinion in the Supreme Court’s 1978 decision in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. Insitutions have relied on the landmark decision for more than two decades now to justify diversity-based affirmative action programs. Although Bakke has not been overturned by the Supreme Court, recent legal and political challenges to affirmative action cast doubt on the ability of colleges and universities to maintain these programs.
Institutions have learned that they cannot prevail legally merely by asserting that diversity is important; they must have data to demonstrate its educational benefits. "The survey instrument helps to fill that need," says Jonathan Alger, assistant general counsel at the University of Michigan and former AAUP counsel. "The data reveal that faculty members across a broad range of disciplines have identified specific ways in which diversity enriches the educational experience for all students."
To create the survey instrument, the AAUP formed a partnership with the ACE, Michigan State University, the Universities of Maryland and Minnesota, and a nationwide team of researchers. A pilot survey was conducted at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. Then, in spring 1999, the survey was mailed to about 1,500 faculty members in different disciplines at public and private doctoral-level research universities; the response rate was nearly 50 percent. Subsequently, the Association of American Law Schools, impressed by the study, used the instrument to conduct its own survey of a thousand faculty members at law schools. In targeting faculty members, these surveys have filled a gap in the research on diversity, which has tended to focus on the perspectives of institutions and students.
The survey reported, among other findings, that
More than 65 percent of faculty respondents said positive benefits accrue from diversity in the classroom.
Among other forms of diversity, racial and ethnic diversity in the classroom is necessary, but not sufficient in and of itself, for creating the most effective educational environment. Other factors, such as classroom climate and teaching techniques, affect the educational possibilities presented by diversity.
Multiracial, multiethnic classrooms have a positive impact on students’ cognitive and personal development, because such environments challenge stereotypes, broaden perspectives, and sharpen critical thinking skills.
"As a professor, I taught in many classes that enrolled only one or two African American or Latino students," comments Mary Burgan, AAUP general secretary and a former professor of English at Indiana University. "I noted how isolating minority status can be for these young people. We haven’t had enough affirmative action yet to encourage access to a critical mass of ethnic and racial minority students who might enrich the educational process. I hope this survey will help to open doors even wider than we have done." The September–October issue of Academe will be devoted to the effects of racial and cultural diversity in higher education.
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