Choosing Colleges in a Post-Affirmative Action Era: Black Students' Perceptions of Institutional Diversity and Campus Climate

Abstract

Highly selective public institutions affected by affirmative action bans have struggled to enroll Black students despite myriad attempts at alternative strategies. Bans likely shift university recruitment practices and shape both campus climate and portrayals of institutional commitment to diversity. Increasingly public racial incidents on college campuses suggest the possibility that Black students’ underrepresentation in selective post-affirmative action contexts may also be a function of choice—Black students’ decision to opt out of institutions they do not perceive to be diverse or inclusive. I conducted an in-depth case study focusing on practices used to encourage Black student enrollment as well as Black students’ appraisals of institutional commitment to diversity and racial climate—both underexplored—as a way to understand the enrollment decisions of Black students admitted to the University of Michigan, a battleground for affirmative action. Guided by an interdisciplinary framework that incorporates models of college choice and social identity theories, including social identity threat and racial identity and concentrating on the yield stage of the admissions cycle, I interviewed 35 Black students (15 enrolled at U-M; 20 enrolled elsewhere) and 16 university professionals across four departments engaged in yield recruitment. I also observed 23 hours of yield events. From the institutional perspective, I found that enrollment professionals were engaged in impression management—efforts to shape admitted Black students’ positive impressions of the university, particularly with respect to diversity and climate. Targeted yield recruitment events and activities were one set of tactics to manage Black students’ impressions. The discourse used in those events represented another set of tactics. Perhaps signaling compliance with the state’s affirmative action ban and awareness of the hostile climate for race-conscious policy, “diversity” was referred to broadly and communicated differently depending on the racial/ethnic identity of the enrollment professional as well as the demographic make-up of the student audience. My findings from the student perspective highlight how Black students’ perceptions of key race and diversity cues from the campus context they encountered during their recruitment experiences were significant in shaping their appraisals of the University of Michigan. The majority of participants expressed concern about the small size of the Black undergraduate population and perceived some level of potential threat (e.g., discrimination and racism) associated with their racial identity. However, among the 20 non-enrollees, only in a few instances were their impressions about diversity or racial climate the deciding factor in their decision to decline admission from the University of Michigan. Among the sample of enrollees, a large portion acknowledged their apprehensions about student racial diversity but still opted to enroll, citing their intention to leverage Black student organizations and cultivate community with same-race peers in order to mitigate potential threats and successfully navigate the stressful campus environment as a Black student. Findings have theoretical implications for understanding the complex interplay between racial identity and consciousness of institutional barriers in college choice. Findings also have implications for enrollment management practices and efforts to increase the representation of Black students in selective, post-affirmative action contexts and in predominantly white institutions, broadly. By highlighting the recruitment activities undertaken to yield Black students and the individual perspectives of Black admitted students, the study also contributes to a small body of literature on recruitment in higher education and deepens our understanding of contemporary sociopolitical issues affecting Black students’ college choice.