Equity is higher ed’s word of the hour – and rightly so.
After all, the pandemic has greatly intensified equity gaps. A Strada survey reported that half of all Latinx students survey and 42 percent of Black students canceled or altered their educational plans due to the pandemic, compared to 26 percent of non-Hispanic white students.
But the problem goes deeper than pandemic-driven disparities. After all, American colleges and universities have a long, ugly history of bias along lines of race, ethnicity, gender, and class, a history of quotas, exclusions, and favoritism, which isn’t over.
We still see preference, privilege, and, yes, prejudice at work. What’s most shocking to me about the Varsity Blues scandal is its lack of impact. At the most highly selective schools, preferences for legacies, athletes in exclusive sports, donors, and faculty children remain intact.