Since passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Higher Education Act of 1965,
America’s colleges and universities have struggled to increase the racial and ethnic diversity of
their students and faculty members, and “affirmative action” has become the policy-of-choice to
achieve that heterogeneity. [Authors state the narrative hook to create reader interest.] These
policies, however, are now at the center of an intense national debate. The current legal
foundation for affirmative action policies rests on the 1978 Regents of the University of
California v. Bakke case, in which Justice William Powell argued that race could be considered
among the factors on which admissions decisions were based. More recently, however, the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in the 1996 Hopwood v. State of Texas case, found
Powell’s argument wanting. Court decisions turning affirmative action policies aside have been
accompanied by state referenda, legislation, and related actions banning or sharply reducing
race sensitive admissions or hiring in California, Florida, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts,
Michigan, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Puerto Rico (Healy, 1998a, 1998b,
1999).
In response, educators and others have advanced educational arguments supporting
affirmative action, claiming that a diverse student body is more educationally effective than a
more homogeneous one. Harvard University President Neil Rudenstine claims that the
“fundamental rationale for student diversity in higher education [is] its educational value”
(Rudenstine, 1999, p. 1). Lee Bollinger, Rudenstine’s counterpart at the University of Michigan,
has asserted, “A classroom that does not have a significant representation from members of
different races produces an impoverished discussion” (Schmidt, 1998, p. A32). These two
presidents are not alone in their beliefs. A statement published by the Association of American
Universities and endorsed by the presidents of 62 research universities stated: “We speak first
and foremost as educators. We believe that our students benefit significantly from education
that takes place within a diverse setting” (“On the Importance of Diversity in University
Admissions,” The New York Times, April 24, 1997, p. A27). [Authors identify the research
problem of the need for diversity.]
Studies of the impact of diversity on student educational outcomes tend to approach the
ways students encounter “diversity” in any of three ways. A small group of studies treat students’
contacts with “diversity” largely as a function of the numerical or proportional racial/ethnic or
gender mix of students on a campus (e.g., Chang, 1996, 1999a; Kanter, 1977; Sax, 1996). . . . A
second considerably larger set of studies take some modicum of structural diversity as a given
and operationalizes students’ encounters with diversity using the frequency or nature of their
reported interactions with peers who are racially/ethnically different from themselves. . . . A third
set of studies examines institutionally structured 165 and purposeful programmatic efforts to
help students engage racial/ethnic and/or gender “diversity” in the form of both ideas and
people.
These various approaches have been used to examine the effects of diversity on a
broad array of student educational outcomes. The evidence is almost uniformly consistent in
indicating that students in a racial/ethnically or gender-diverse community, or engaged in a
diversity-related activity, reap a wide array of positive educational benefits. [Authors mention
studies that have addressed the problem.]
Only a relative handful of studies (e.g., Chang, 1996, 1999a; Sax, 1996) have
specifically examined whether the racial/ethnic or gender composition of the students on a
campus, in an academic major, or in a classroom (i.e., structural diversity) has the educational
benefits claimed. . . . Whether the degree of racial diversity of a campus or classroom has a
direct effect on learning outcomes, however, remains an open question. [Deficiencies or the
limitations in existing studies are noted.]
The scarcity of information on the educational benefits of the structural diversity on a
campus or in its classrooms is regrettable because it is the sort of evidence the courts appear to
be requiring if they are to support race-sensitive admissions policies. [Importance of the study
for campus audiences is mentioned.]
This study attempted to contribute to the knowledge base by exploring the influence of
structural diversity in the classroom on students’ development of academic and intellectual
skills. . . . This study examines both the direct effect of classroom diversity on
academic/intellectual outcomes and whether any effects of classroom diversity may be
moderated by the extent to which active and collaborative instructional approaches are used in
the course. [Purpose of the study is identified.] (pp. 510–512, reprinted by permission of The
Journal of Higher Education)