U.S. to stop encouraging race as factor in school admissions

WASHINGTON » The Trump administration on Tuesday rescinded Obama-era guidance that encouraged schools to take a student’s race into account to promote diversity in admissions.

The shift suggests schools will have the federal government’s blessing to leave race out of admissions and enrollment decisions, and it underscores the contentious politics that continue to surround affirmative action policies, which have repeatedly been challenged before the Supreme Court.

The admissions memos were among 24 policy documents revoked by the Justice Department for being “unnecessary, outdated, inconsistent with existing law, or otherwise improper.” Attorney General Jeff Sessions called the changes an effort to restore the “rule of law” and blamed past administrations for imposing new rules without seeking public comment.

“That’s wrong, and it’s not good government,” Sessions said in a statement.

The action comes amid a high-profile court fight over Harvard University admissions as well as Supreme Court turnover expected to produce a more critical eye toward schools’ race-conscious admissions policies.

The court’s most recent significant ruling on the subject bolstered colleges’ use of race among many factors in the admission process. But the opinion’s author, Anthony Kennedy, announced his retirement last week, giving President Donald Trump a chance to replace him with a justice who may be more reliably skeptical of admissions programs that take race and ethnicity into account.

The new policy dramatically departs from the stance of the Obama administration, which in a 2011 policy document said courts had recognized schools’ “compelling interest” in ensuring racially diverse populations. The guidance said that while race shouldn’t be the primary factor in an admission decision, schools could lawfully consider it in the interest of achieving diversity.

“Institutions are not required to implement raceneutral approaches if, in their judgment, the approaches would be unworkable,” the guidance said. “In some cases, race-neutral approaches will be unworkable because they will be ineffective to achieve the diversity the institution seeks.”

That guidance has now been rescinded, as have more than a half-dozen other similar documents, including some that sought to explain court rulings affirming the use of race as one of several factors in the admissions process.

In one such document, the Obama administration stated, “As the Supreme Court has recognized, diversity has benefits for all students, and today’s students must be prepared to succeed in a diverse society and an increasingly global workforce.”

The Trump administration’s announcement is more in line with Bush-era policy that discouraged affirmative action and instead encouraged the use of race-neutral alternatives, like percentage plans and economic diversity programs.

Though such guidance doesn’t have the force of law, schools could presumably use it to defend themselves against lawsuits over admission policies.

The Trump administration’s Justice Department had already signaled concern about the use of race in admissions decisions.

The department, for instance, has sided with Asian-American plaintiffs who contend in a lawsuit against Harvard that the school unlawfully limits how many Asian students are admitted.

Students for Fair Admissions, the group suing Harvard, is led by Ed Blum, a legal strategist who also helped white student Abigail Fisher sue the University of Texas for alleged discrimination in a case that reached the Supreme Court.

Blum said Tuesday the organization “welcomes any governmental actions that will eliminate racial classifications and preferences in college admissions.” Harvard, meanwhile, said it would continue considering race as an admissions factor to create a “diverse campus community where students from all walks of life have the opportunity to learn with and from each other.”

Civil liberties groups criticized the Trump administration’s announcement, saying it went against decades of court precedent permitting colleges to take race into account.

“We condemn the Department of Education’s politically motivated attack on affirmative action and deliberate attempt to discourage colleges and universities from pursuing racial diversity at our nation’s colleges and universities,” Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said in a statement.