The Demise of Affirmative Action in College Admissions

Abstract

Affirmative action began as a bipartisan policy to address racial inequality in the workplace and in higher education. Given its small footprint in college admissions (most colleges never practiced it), its bipartisan support in the early years, evidence documenting its positive impact, and renewed attention to racial inequality since 2020, why did it come to an end in 2023? This review traces the dominant cultural framings of affirmative action in college admissions and their changing usage in US political and legal systems over time, the relationship between framing and public support for affirmative action, and evidence for the central frames used to defend or critique the policy. I argue that understanding affirmative action's framing over time by political actors is key to understanding its demise. During the 1960s and 1970s, university leaders framed affirmative action as a mechanism to promote racial equity. From the late 1970s, advocates reframed the policy as a tool to promote the benefits of diversity. During that same period, critics advanced a reverse discrimination frame. As the reverse discrimination and diversity frames took hold in court, it became impossible for advocates to successfully excavate the earlier equity framing. As such, defenders were left with the diversity frame, a weak defense of a critical policy that eventually fell.