Affirmative action policy has early roots in U.S. history, introduced in 1961 under John F. Kennedy to address workplace discrimination. Since then it has become embedded in college admissions practices to allow equal opportunities for minority students. But in 2008, the Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin court case challenged the fairness of those policies towards white students. Abigail Fischer, along with Edward Blum, founder of Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA), lost the case in 2016. But now the SFFA is filing another lawsuit, this time against Harvard University. While affirmative action is up for debate in court, one researcher thinks she may have found a solution to address the fairness complaints on both sides: an admissions lottery system. Here to share how such a system would work is Natasha Warikoo, Associate Professor of Education at Harvard University.
To learn more about the movement towards a lottery admissions system, Warikoo’s book “The Diversity Bargain And Other Dilemmas of Race, Admissions, and Meritocracy at Elite Universities” explores this issue.
The Conversation | Why elite colleges should use a lottery to admit students
