"How Do I Bring Diversity?" Race and Class in the College Admissions Essay

In the first systematic study of what college applicants invoke when required to submit a diversity essay, we revisit many settled assumptions on both the left and the right about how such an essay would operate after Grutter and Gratz as well as after the passage of anti-affirmative action ballot i...

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Published in:Law & society review 2011-03, Vol.45 (1), p.103-138
Main Authors: Kirkland, Anna, Hansen, Ben B.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Affirmative action
College admission
Colleges & universities
Corporate culture
Cultural diversity
Diversity training
Essays
Ethnic diversity
Low income groups
Minority & ethnic groups
Minority group students
Multiculturalism & pluralism
Race
Racial diversity
Science
Social problems and social policy. Social work
Sociology
Sociology of education. Educational systems. Lifelong education
Standardized tests
Student diversity
White people
Writers
Young adults
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description In the first systematic study of what college applicants invoke when required to submit a diversity essay, we revisit many settled assumptions on both the left and the right about how such an essay would operate after Grutter and Gratz as well as after the passage of anti-affirmative action ballot initiatives. Our data are a sample of 176 diversity essays submitted to the University of Michigan in the immediate aftermath of the University's Supreme Court win, analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively with special attention to the differences that the essay writer's race and class position make. We find that in many respects the essays are similar when written by applicants from similar backgrounds but different races, and that conservative critics were wrong to assume the essay would function simply as a way of announcing oneself as an under-the-table affirmative action candidate. Rather than suggesting a straightforward lineup of advantage and disadvantage, we suggest rather that the essay is a vehicle for the youngest generation of citizens to both receive and send back a new conception of difference that has some essentializing elements but overall is turning in a postracial, cosmopolitan direction.
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subjects Affirmative action
College admission
Colleges & universities
Corporate culture
Cultural diversity
Diversity training
Essays
Ethnic diversity
Low income groups
Minority & ethnic groups
Minority group students
Multiculturalism & pluralism
Race
Racial diversity
Science
Social problems and social policy. Social work
Sociology
Sociology of education. Educational systems. Lifelong education
Standardized tests
Student diversity
White people
Writers
Young adults
title "How Do I Bring Diversity?" Race and Class in the College Admissions Essay
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