Race, Meritocracy, and Higher Education

Catalog description

This course will consider two principles that have shaped American higher education, and, in turn, American society: meritocracy and diversity. The ideal of diversity has shaped higher education at least since the Supreme Court's 1978 decision in Bakke v. University of California Regents. More recently, the Supreme Court has prohibited the use of race-based affirmative action in pursuit of diversity. And the Trump Administration has advocated for ideological diversity, while condemning the idea of racial diversity and approaches such as disparate impact and DEI, with which it is associated. The ideal of meritocracy is also embattled. As a pivotal feature of the development of modern society, meritocracy has also suffused academic institutions, providing a basis for the evaluation of student work, of research, and of applicants. In recent years, the idea of meritocracy has itself become subject to criticism. Some commentators allege that universities have failed to live up to meritocratic ideals, either in the admissions process or in the campus culture. Other commentators cite the fulfillment of the meritocratic ideal as the problem. As with diversity, meritocracy is subject to multiple meanings, which we will probe. The central inquiry of the course concerns the extent to which the ideals of diversity and meritocracy are intertwined with current controversies in higher education, from admissions criteria, to cost, student debt, and social mobility, to research, institutional orthodoxy, academic freedom, and free speech. Course Materials: The course materials will be varied and will include not only judicial opinions and law review articles, but also books, magazine articles, social science research, and podcasts. We will also read my book manuscript, The Miseducation of America, which addresses many of the issues we will discuss. Course Culture: This course will be…