ACE and Affirmative Action, A Brief History

ACE and Affirmative Action

ACE and Affirmative Action: A Brief History

If the goal of affirmative action was to bring underrepresented individuals up to their proportionate share of the population in the area of admission to selective institutions and programs, or to increase their share of the available pool of potential workers in a particular area of employment, then it would be easy to conclude that affirmative action has failed. On the other hand, if one goal was improved participation, then it is clear that substantial gains have been made.

For many years, ACE has sought to be a force for promoting diversity in higher education through conferences, programs, and guidance materials that target the needs and concerns of minority men and all women. ACE first addressed access issues for minorities following the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and when Title IX was passed in 1972, ACE's Annual Meeting focused on women in higher education. Listed below are a few of the more salient expressions of our commitment to promoting access, diversity, and equal opportunity in higher education:

In the early 1970s, ACE issued self-assessment guidance materials to help institutions of higher learning better serve minority men and all women.
For more than 30 years, the ACE Fellows Program has promoted the advancement of all women and minority men in academic administration, and it boasts an excellent track record.
THE NETWORK (formerly the National Network for Women Leaders in Higher Education) dedicated to the advancement of women in higher education, has been a major factor in tripling the number of women presidents at U.S. colleges and universities (now up to 16 percent of the total) over the past 20 years.
Since 1982, ACE has issued 20 annual minority status reports, which have brought national attention to the facts about minority participation in higher education. These reports are but one of the results of ACE's establishment in 1981 of its Center for Advancement of Racial and Ethnic Equity (formerly the Office of Minorities in Higher Education).
ACE administers the GED Tests annually to more than 850,000 Americans, providing an opportunity to obtain a high school equivalency diploma to persons who, for any number of reasons, did not complete high school.
As part of ACE's series of self-regulation guidelines, the ACE Board in 1984 adopted a Statement on Educational Diversity, Equality, and Quality. This document urged institutions to make a commitment to the principles and practices of civil rights, foster an environment encouraging diversity at all levels, and be sensitive to the requirements of individual circumstances.
1977, ACE administered the HEATH Resource Center, the national clearinghouse on postsecondary education for individuals with disabilities, from 1977 through 2001. The HEATH Resource Center is now operated by the George Washington University.

One of ACE's most celebrated accomplishments in the last decade was the issuance of the 1988 report, One-Third of a Nation, which drew attention to the lagging participation of minorities in higher education and set a goal of proportional representation by the end of the century. The report was prepared by a national commission of distinguished Americans, sponsored by ACE and the Education Commission of the States. The report urged institutions and governments at all levels to take the steps necessary to achieve this goal. The ACE Board subsequently declared the improvement of minority participation in higher education to be our organization's highest priority. (Additional information about this conference, now titled Educating All of One Nation, is available.)

Today, the higher education community looks to ACE to lead the defense of affirmative action. Many people have appreciated ACE's efforts to protect student financial aid; the organization has made an equal commitment to defending the affirmative action programs that are under siege at the campus, state, and federal levels.

Through its Minority Status Reports, ACE has been calling attention both to the increase in minority participation in higher education and to the massive work that still needs to be done. Whether the gains already realized would have occurred in the absence of affirmative action pressures remains unknown, either as a matter of statistics or as a matter of policy, but ACE's

advocacy in this arena is certain.

A particular concern of ACE is that women and minorities often are lumped together for affirmative action purposes. Among the limitations of this approach is that it "hides" and thereby disserves minority women. Also, the supply problems often differ greatly, particularly in higher education employment, where there exists an ample supply of white women but not women of color for most academic positions. ACE has been particularly vocal in calling attention to the enormity of the pipeline problem for underrepresented minorities.

The moral principle of affirmative action—far more than any governmental enforcement of legal requirements—has contributed substantially to the participation of all women and minority men in higher education. To impose new prohibitions against affirmative action in admissions decisions would be devastating to the effort to achieve and maintain diversity within our student bodies and, ironically, would be a serious intrusion into institutional autonomy at a time when many in government and academe are demanding precisely the opposite.

A Call to Action

ACE's history of leadership in this field, including the strong commitment of its Board over many years to making the improvement of minority participation a top priority, has caused educators with similar interests and commitments to look to ACE for support now that affirmative action is under siege. ACE has responded by beginning an initiative to define affirmative action in positive terms, and to explain and defend its practice. Further, ACE has opposed federal and state attempts to dilute or terminate programs designed to promote affirmative action in employment, admissions, and financial aid. This publication,

Making the Case for Affirmative Action in Higher Education, is part of this initiative, and we hope you will be, too. Review this material, consider the strategy, and decide that now is the time to act. It is our collective responsibility to make the case for affirmative action in higher education.

The Need to Act is Reinforced: An ACE Survey

In 1995, administrators, student affairs officials, faculty, and students from 22 public and private, two-year and four-year institutions participated in a telephone survey on campus climate and inter-group relations. The survey was conducted by six members of the Society for Values in Higher Education on behalf of ACE. The results confirmed that demographic trends,

which show racial and ethnic minority groups growing more than seven times faster than the non-Hispanic white majority, already are being felt in a number of institutions around the country. Many respondents reported the special difficulties of struggling to manage diversity successfully, to maintain a gender-supportive campus environment, and to meet the challenge of preparing all students for citizenship in a greatly changing world.

This survey made clear that many of America's campus climate problems are subtle, tenacious, and hurtful. ACE understood the message as a call to strengthen the organization's voice in the national media and at all levels of government to counteract attempts to undermine diversity in higher education. It's a message ACE has heard and to which ACE's leadership will respond.