Following the Supreme Court’s ruling, US universities must carefully and meaningfully look at alternative approaches to fostering student diversity within their campuses.
By Seb Murray, Contributing Writer
"Many international students looking at US admissions do find it puzzling that race is a factor that is directly considered in admissions"
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The Supreme Court’s recent ruling against the use of race as a factor in college admissions has ignited a heated debate about the future of affirmative action in US universities. The landmark judgement has significant implications for underrepresented minority students and approaches to promoting diversity on US campuses.
In the aftermath of the ruling, schools are wrestling with its consequences, particularly the potential legal ramifications. Consequently, there is a growing urgency to explore race-neutral alternatives that can achieve diversity while preserving fairness in the admissions process.
Nevertheless, the Supreme Court’s decision has unquestionably dealt a blow to affirmative action. “The ruling is going to severely constrain what schools can do to promote diversity in higher education,” says Reginald Oh, a Professor of Law at Cleveland State University.
Proponents of affirmative action argue that considering race is crucial for addressing historical disparities and promoting the societal benefits of higher education. However, the court ruling advocates a colour-blind approach, putting the spotlight on race-neutral alternatives to fostering diversity.
Oh says critics may attempt to challenge these alternative methods, however the burden of proof lies in demonstrating that these policies were implemented with racial discrimination in mind. “That is a very hard thing to do,” he says. “So, while there will be legal challenges, schools are in a strong position to defend against them.”
In the Supreme Court case, Students for Fair Admissions, a non-profit organisation founded conservative legal strategist Edward Blum, challenged the use of race in admissions at the University of North Carolina and Harvard University, claiming it favoured black and Hispanic students over Asian Americans and others. The group aimed to overturn the 2003 Supreme Court decision in Grutter vs Bollinger, which permitted the use of race in admissions to promote diversity.
“Many international students looking at US admissions do find it puzzling that race is a factor that is directly considered in admissions,” explains Jamie Beaton, CEO of Crimson Education, an admissions consulting firm. Affirmative action can indeed make it harder for students from certain backgrounds to gain admission to US colleges, he claims.
"There are a plethora of ways in which race is invisibly operating in our society and in admissions for those who want to put their blinders on,"
Little wonder that affirmative action has long been the topic of heated discussion in US higher education. It aims to create equal opportunities by levelling the playing field for underrepresented communities. However, the practice has now been severely curtailed. Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Dean of Boston University School of Law and expert in Critical Race Theory, says: “The Supreme Court’s decision is a blow to affirmative action.”
Despite the court’s ruling, Onwuachi-Willig contends that racial bias against black and Latinx students will persist. She points out that implicit racial bias influences grade point averages (GPAs) in high schools, undermining the supposed objectivity of university admission criteria. “There are a plethora of ways in which race is invisibly operating in our society and in admissions for those who want to put their blinders on,” Onwuachi-Willig says, cautioning that the court’s decision may contribute to ongoing racial inequality.
The impact of state-level bans on affirmative action, though, is a subject of contention. Peter Hinrichs, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland who studied this issue, notes that such bans have resulted in decreased enrolment of underrepresented minority students at highly-selective public universities. However, he also observes that these students still attend college elsewhere. “State-level affirmative action bans don’t have a measurable effect on overall college attendance rates,” states Hinrichs.
Susan Brown, a sociology professor at the University of California, Irvine, delved into the consequences of the 1998 ban on affirmative action in Washington State. Her research revealed that while underrepresented minority enrolments experienced a temporary decline, they rebounded within a couple of years. She attributes more of the initial decline to reduced applications rather than actual admissions. “Many students view affirmative action as a welcome mat,” says Brown. “It’s easy to overlook how daunting college is.”
In response to the state-level bans, colleges have adopted various strategies. Some have implemented targeted scholarship programmes or increased outreach efforts to high schools, particularly those with significant minority populations. States like California, Florida and Texas have also introduced “percentage plans”, automatically admitting high school students near the top of their class to public universities. The idea is to improve access in racially segregated areas.
"Students by and large see diversity as a feature of an enriching educational experience"
Following the Supreme Court’s ruling, US universities will be actively exploring alternative approaches to fostering student diversity, say experts. The options include using proxies for race, such as socioeconomic background, as well as eliminating standardised testing, which has taken flak for allegedly benefiting wealthier students who have tutors, and expanding outreach programs to engage students from underrepresented communities.
The ruling leaves room for universities to consider how an applicant’s race may have affected their life through discrimination, inspiration or some other means. “To achieve diversity in a post-affirmative action world, colleges will have to seek out race-neutral means, particularly socioeconomic status and a range of subjective traits like grit or determination,” says Adam Nguyen, founder and CEO of admissions agency Ivy Link.
As universities strive to attain diversity using race-neutral approaches, applicants are urged to delve into the nuances of their identity, inspirations, challenges and life experiences. “There’s no doubt that the recent decision striking down affirmative action will place more emphasis on an applicant’s personal story,” says admissions consultant Stacy Blackman, who has witnessed a surge in inquiries from business-school applicants about the Supreme Court’s ruling.
She advocates for a holistic evaluation of candidates, stressing: “There has never been just one single application bucket, such as race alone, that is a dealmaker.”
Universities will ultimately need to strike a balance between fostering diversity and ensuring fairness in the admissions process. As Beaton at Crimson Education says: “Advocates of affirmative action argue that the net benefit of considering race to society in the spirit of helping disadvantaged groups is worth it, but many disagree. The reality is that these US institutions are some of the ultimate global springboards of opportunity, and figuring out how to apportion this special resource is a challenging debate.”
Nevertheless, Raj Patil, CEO of Admissionado, is confident that universities will persevere in their pursuit of diversity. “Students by and large see diversity as a feature of an enriching educational experience,” he says. “So in order to deliver this opportunity to their consumers, colleges are heavily incentivised to develop any and all alternative means to help achieve diversity to remain desirable.”
For anyone working in the international education sector, its value as an export and cultural benefit is clear. Those outside, particularly local communities, however, aren’t as aware. We look at how countries are promoting the benefits of international education to the wider population.
By Gauri Kohli, Contributing Writer
"Access to international education provides a gateway to opportunity, builds economies, and fosters a more secure and equitable world."
International education is thriving as an export industry in countries such as Australia, the UK, the US, and Canada, going beyond being just a catalyst for economic success. As top destinations for international students, these nations are understanding that the true value of international education lies in the positive impact on people, communities, businesses and the knowledge sector.
Some have launched campaigns to educate the general public about these benefits of international education. For instance, recently, the International Education Association of Australia (IEAA) launched a unique campaign to showcase that in addition to economic contributions, the advantages that international education and students bring to the country include cultural and societal development. Sharing inspiring stories of international students collaborating with Australian businesses and communities, the campaign focuses on how such partnerships contribute to the country.
Taking the lead, state promotional bodies, Study NSW and Study Queensland, jointly invested in the campaign. Its focus is on three outstanding international students – Patti from Bangkok, Ralph from Dubai, and Jerry from Jakarta – who showcase the ways international students contribute to their societies.
The campaign promotes that international education is essential to Australia’s success. (Photo: IEAA official website)
Patti, for instance, excels as a mental health counsellor and dedicates her time to teaching dance classes, creating a positive effect on mental well-being within the community. Ralph’s valuable work in old-age care shows the meaningful roles international graduates play in key sectors. Meanwhile, Jerry’s efforts in organising fellow students to assist with fruit picking during labour shortages demonstrate the active involvement of international students in coping with national challenges.
Similarly in New Zealand, Education New Zealand (ENZ) took the positive step in 2019 of educating small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) about the unique benefits of hiring international graduates. A joint report by ENZ and insights agency TRA revealed that employers’ perceptions of international graduates vary significantly depending on whether they have prior experience in hiring migrant workers.
Employers who had previously hired international graduates viewed them as valuable assets, while those who had not, perceived them as a risk. It suggests that employers share their positive experiences and normalise hiring of international graduates to promote wider acceptance and understanding.
The COVID-19 pandemic prompted shifts in attitudes toward international students among Australian and New Zealand citizens, according to a 2021 survey by IEAA and ENZ. There is increased sensitivity towards the practical hardship international students face, such as living away from home and experiencing social isolation.
To bridge the gap, the report recommended implementing more structured peer-to-peer support within educational institutions. Such support systems would enable domestic students to gain insights into the experiences of international students through shared studies and interactions, fostering a more inclusive and supportive campus environment.
Addressing the challenge of international students being perceived as taking opportunities away from domestic students, ongoing campaigns aim to dismiss these misconceptions and highlight the genuine benefits that international education brings to host countries and their communities.
Another example is that of a campaign in May 2023 by Universities UK International (UUKi), a sector body representing more than 140 UK universities. It relaunched a 10-year-old campaign called #WeAreInternational, which aims to improve how welcoming the UK is as a study destination as perceived by international students. It also aims to improve the levels of positive sentiment towards international students and international education in the UK media and with UK politicians, through communicating how valuable the contributions of international students are to the country.
UUKi recently released a report on the costs and benefits of international higher education students to the UK. The report includes a breakdown of economic value by constituency, and received significant and sustained media coverage across local, national and sector press. It has also been shared extensively across the UK government. It demonstrates the immense economic contribution internationals students make – almost £42 billion for a single cohort – and the distribution of this across every region of the UK. Further, UK public polling undertaken by UUKi earlier this year demonstrated that public perceptions are already positive, where only 9 percent of respondents thought international students and researchers should be discouraged from coming to the UK.
According to Andrew Howells, assistant director, UUKi, who has lead numerous national level, sector-wide campaigns, “Whether it’s a doctor or nurse from another country, trained in a UK university and working in the NHS; an international graduate developing the tech to detect breast cancer early; international students volunteering in university towns and cities during COVID-19; UK universities twinning with Ukrainian counterparts; or the thousands of other examples of how international students, alumni and staff enrich our society and culture… The campaign is telling this story, empowering the voices of international students and bringing the sector together, to communicate how international students make the UK, society and the world a better place.”
It is a surprise to most people not within the sector to learn that education is usually a top 10 export. There is often some pushback claiming that international students are taking domestic students’ places or jobs.. However, Dr Allan E Goodman, chief executive officer, Institute of International Education, US, has a different view.
“We believe access to international education provides a gateway to opportunity, builds economies, and fosters a more secure and equitable world. One of the industries that define American prosperity, goodwill and strength on the world stage is education,” he says.
“The US has plenty of space to welcome more students from abroad. The capacity at US higher education institutions exceeds that of the rest of the top 10 hosting nations combined, offering an unparalleled variety of fields of study and majors. International students are important contributors to the communities they join.”
According to the US Department of State, international students, whose volume crossed the one million mark for the fifth straight year in 2019-20, added over $39 billion to the country’s economy in 2020, and supported 415,000 jobs.
Elaborating on the impact these campaigns have in terms of promoting international education, the industry, to the general population, Dr Goodman says national campaigns illustrate the many opportunities that are available to students worldwide. For the US, such initiatives highlight the diversity of the country’s higher education system and students’ ability to connect with each other on different ideas and perspectives.
Governments, too, are aware of the importance of international education. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken highlighted the value of international education to the country’s economic prosperity, national security and diplomacy, besides and its leadership in research and innovation at an EducationUSA Forum a few years ago.
Blinken told the US international education sector, comprising 4,000 colleges and universities, that they can “count on” the Biden-Harris administration to do everything “to make your work easier”.
Universities Australia, the peak body for the sector in Australia, believes that international students are back and the focus should be on keeping them in the country.
“We expect that export income data will soon show an improvement in response to students returning, edging us closer to the pre-Covid $40.3 billion economic contribution,” says Catriona Jackson, Chief Executive of Universities Australia.
The income international students bring to Australia supports thousands of jobs, boosts wages and lifts living standards right across the country, besides the important university research it helps fund, so international education as a sector must be well-accepted by the general public.
“Despite the strong numbers, we are not maximising the longer term returns our comparative advantage offers,” Jackson says. “Very few of the international students we educate remain here after they graduate – only 28 percent use their poststudy work rights in Australia and just 16% go on to become permanent residents. COVID-19 has underscored the urgent need to stop the talent exodus and ignite our economy with more skilled workers.”
In Canada, due to the aging of the country’s population, in the next decade, immigration is expected to account for 100 percent of net growth in the workforce. As per the country’s International Education Strategy 2024, international students make excellent candidates for permanent residency as “they are relatively young, proficient in at least one official language, have Canadian educational qualifications, and can help address this country’s current and pending labour market needs, particularly for highly skilled workers.” As many as 53,700 international students became permanent residents of Canada in 2018, contributing as productive and valued members of Canadian society.
The practice of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) has seen various successes at UK universities but much more remains to be explored and renewed in the international education arena.
By Cheryl Yu, Director of International, Jimmy Choo Academy
"To embrace EDI is to break through the social and cultural reproduction of our society by promoting the widening access and success of underprivileged and underrepresented individuals and groups."
There are debates on whether and how white academics can teach African studies when they do not share the lived experience and espoused emotions of being a Black African, going through the economic, political, social and racial struggle, historically and contemporarily. How can academics, from all backgrounds integrate EDI in the classroom within their teaching practice in a way that we can start questioning the traditionally elitism-perpetuated understanding of knowledge and learn the truth?
With our classrooms becoming more diverse, complex and heterogeneous than ever, with students coming from different ethnic, social, educational and linguistic backgrounds, nowadays, sometimes the makeup of a classroom can be 90 percent international students in the UK. This greatly shifts the dynamics and needs of education set in a global context. For example, students coming from India who are used to their local educational norms and social values should have equal representation, participation and engagement to be part of the learning experience as students from the UK, Nigeria, or the Caribbean.
Are academics who were educated by white teachers or professors and who are used to teaching a more homogeneous group of students culturally and pedagogically ready to go into the classroom and teach, ignoring the heterogeneity in the classroom, as if all students need the same? Education at a global level requires educators to philosophically re-conceptualize the meaning of a university, what is knowledge, and how we acquire knowledge, with a worldwide perspective.
- Only through questioning epistemologically what is knowledge and how we acquire knowledge can we truly transform the learning experience.
- Only through responsible education can we educate responsible future citizens.
- Only through inclusive education can we influence and create the next generation to be inclusive.
As Simon Pratt, Director of Research Strategy & Excellence at the University of Toronto, states: "A student's socio-demographical status will often correlate to traditional measures of student success, such as graduation rates or employment rates. To embrace EDI is to break through the social and cultural reproduction of our society by promoting the widening access and success of underprivileged and underrepresented individuals and groups. It is a social and educational movement that we all should be part of through commitment to action. The international dimension of a responsible university is to engage meaningfully with international students and partner institutions as one community placing the underpinning praxis of education in teaching and learning, and research.”
"A progressive education for freedom requires us to re-think and deconstruct the old epistemology on how we learn, how we teach and what is truth and knowledge."
Professor Vs Student Power
Coming from a family background with French, British and Chinese in the same household, where English is my second language living in the UK, the beliefs of Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 1972) and bell hooks (Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, 1994) on the use of progressive pedagogy and the meaning of social justice have become an oasis and a source of inspiration. At the same time, it also makes me feel disheartened by a continuing lack of inclusion and social justice within teaching practice. It is not uncommon to hear that some students put up with feeling invisible, ignored, or inferior in the classroom. They lose interest or motivation, they give up, and they fail in their study where the system is not designed to enable them to succeed. On the other side, some lecturers question whether the students are unqualified, disengaged, indifferent, or incapable. Of course, the fact that sometimes the class size is well over 100 students compounds this problem, as it is harder for lecturers to get to know all their students.
Progressive education dispenses with the teacher or professor as the authority in the classroom. bell hooks argues that academics need to achieve a level of self-actualization: they should challenge their own exercise of power and authority to engage in equal relations with students, including the institutionalized post-colonial sense, as only when one is self-actualised can one truly practice education as freedom. Borrowing the discussion from Paulo Freire (1972), the first step needs to be for the oppressed to unveil the world of oppression and through praxis commit themselves to its transformation. This can be particularly challenging when students come from a high-power distance culture where the professor is automatically seen as the authority and source of knowledge. At this stage, students must recognize that education is about co-creating between tutors and peers, and their personal understanding, beliefs and sometimes experiences matter. They have a voice and representation that is of significance and relevance in the classroom. In the second stage, when the oppression has been transformed, this practice will become a pedagogy for everyone.
A progressive education for freedom requires us to re-think and deconstruct the old epistemology on how we learn, how we teach and what is truth and knowledge. This re-adjustment of authority and tradition is essential for teaching social justice, a practice focusing on providing students with the skills, confidence, belief and determination to create social change.
"Education should always embed historical, progressive and global perspectives.."
Student vs Student Power
Paulo Freire's insistence that education could be the practice of freedom encourages critical consciousness in the classroom. According to bell hooks, that means that everyone, professors and students, needs to be active participants. Education can only be liberatory when everyone labours and participates, which was affirmed by Thich Nhat Hanh's philosophy of engaged Buddhism the focus on practice in conjunction with contemplation. This active participation of students from diverse experiences and prior knowledge enables rigorous discussion and collaboration, but also an understanding to generate empathy, the highest form of human knowledge.
Equalising the power in the classroom, among students, creates the possibility of eradicating the normalised power and authority attached to the dominant groups or individuals in the class, challenging the illusion of invulnerability of the power, and the unexamined moral and ethical codes. This can be achieved through the avoidance of peer pressure and groupthink and by moving towards conscious inclusion. Equity requires us to treat students according to their differentiated needs. For instance, the unfamiliarity of a topic or discourse for a group of students in the classroom would disadvantage students academically and socially, causing students to feel estranged and alienated.
On the other hand, the active engagement of some students might be perceived as pretentious by fellow classmates. The process of rigorous inquiry and challenging one another across differences require us to be able to reflect and change the way we learn, as this is the catalyst for growth and new ways of thinking. Dialectic engagement does not make the classroom a site of conflict and tensions but progress.
By giving everyone an equal voice, and creating a safe space in the classroom, progressive pedagogy allows all students to contribute to conversations about institutionalised dominance, inequality, hegemony and oppression. The change in student demographics and diversity should mean that universities recognise and seek to dismantle racism, sexism and ableism throughout the institution. It requires the teaching to be intentionally inclusive and progressive.
Education should always embed historical, progressive and global perspectives. These should be embedded in the learning objectives, pedagogies and curriculum, so that they stay relevant, systematically and institutionally. Social justice pedagogy is a method of teaching dedicated to creating equitable classrooms, discussions and assignments for students of all identities through re-thinking epistemologically the construction and learning process of knowledge and truth. This requires us to challenge the status quo, to question our institutionalised values and habits that help maintain the culture of domination and inequality.
Inclusion and Intercultural Teaching
When it comes to working with international students, the cultural intelligence (CQ) framework developed by David Livermore (The Cultural Intelligence Difference, 2011) could become a good strategy for academics to utilise. He divides CQ into four progressive but cyclical steps, from CQ Drive, CQ Knowledge and CQ Strategy to CQ Action. The knowledge about diverse cultural aspects, similarities and differences between cultures, values and their impact is not sufficient in effective CQ practice.
The ultimate stage is the ability to adapt our behaviour appropriately to different cultures. It involves having a flexible repertoire of responses to suit various situations. A recent research project carried out with 50 academics at a UK university revealed that despite 95 percent of the participating academics having an average (55 percent) or high (40 percent) cultural awareness, only 30 percent displayed high competencies in all four CQ elements and 20 percent of participants were unable to give any examples of adjusting teaching approach with a commonality of monolingual or less confident in multilingual contexts. These participants who showed high cultural competency have worked overseas, or/either are international staff themselves or /either speak a second language or/either have over four years' experience teaching international students.
This research indicates that only through the lived experience of being international or by being immersed themselves in an international context, can they navigate the diversity by developing the required strategies to work effectively with international students, by understanding where they come from, how they behave and why they act in a particular way.
The Politics of Language and Class
For international students, the language potentially represents two levels of challenges, the freedom of communicating effectively and the freedom of communication. On one level, to set a competitive standard, UK universities commonly recruit students with an English level of IELTS 6.0 (CEFR B2) to come and study in the UK. However, many institutions also try their hardest to allow the students to 'meet' the standard. This can mean that students are not fully prepared linguistically to engage meaningfully in the classroom. The frustration experienced by the students and teaching staff sometimes leads to both sides giving up. Once students move on from this challenge of being able to communicate, they can still be faced with self-doubt about their own accents, as they are unaware of the vast range of accents across the UK, and how their accents will be just one of many.
In the language space, Karina Rose Mahan (The comprehending teacher: scaffolding in content and language integrated learning, 2020)’s further developed the scaffolding strategy based on Lev Vygotsky's sociocultural theory to encourage academics to use discourse strategies, academic vocabulary development, metacognitive strategies, drawing on prior knowledge, and providing supportive materials (multimedia & semiotics). This facilitates students to transition from direct support from the professors towards independent problem-solving and networking with peers. Scaffolding is essential if students are to acquire skills that will help them lead their own learning. Providing supportive materials is also to be consciously inclusive.
In our society, we seem to ignore the existence of class with an illusion that we are all equal, and the same in the classroom. The white middle-class value tends to dictate the norms in the classroom, creating a barrier to the possibility of confrontation and rigorous debates. The censoring process of one dominating value in the classroom undermines or silences the ‘others’, the opposite of being inclusive. Collective participation and dialogue allow students to have their voices, thoughts and sometimes personal experiences heard and shared not only with the professor but also with their fellow students. At least, this gives the equal presence of all students and the professor in the classroom.
Institutionally, at UK universities, the measurement of student success, the National Student Survey, focuses on final-year undergraduate students, whereas the majority of international students in the UK study at the master’s degree level, which means their voice is not equally represented. The second issue with this indicator of student success is that it is based on economic values, such as employment rate, and salary earnings, neglecting social justice, equality and inclusion. An evolved global education requires us to re-conceptualise the value of a responsible international university, accompanied by the rethinking of the wider meaning of social justice in our society through progressive education.