Diversity in American Higher Education ─ Toward a More Comprehensive Approach

Diversity has been a focus of higher education policy, law, and scholarship for decades, continually expanding to include not only race, ethnicity and gender, but also socioeconomic status, sexual and political orientation, and more. However, existing collections still tend to focus on a narrow definition of diversity in education, or in relation to singular topics like access to higher education, financial aid, and affirmative action. By contrast, Diversity in American Higher Education captures in one volume the wide range of critical issues that comprise the current discourse on diversity on the college campus in its broadest sense.

This edited collection explores:



legal perspectives on diversity and affirmative action
higher education's relationship to the deeper roots of K-12 equity and access
policy, politics, and practice's effects on students, faculty, and staff.


Bringing together the leading experts on diversity in higher education scholarship, Diversity in American Higher Education redefines the agenda for diversity as we know it today.

Lisa M. Stulberg is Associate Professor of Educational Sociology at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.

Sharon Lawner Weinberg is Professor of Applied Statistics and Psychology and former Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs at New York University.

Introduction, Lisa M. Stulberg and Sharon Lawner Weinberg
I. The K-12 Pipeline: Impacts on Educational Equity

1. Ethnic and Social Class Disparities in Academic Skills: Their Origins and Consequences, Meredith Phillips

2. Inside the K-12 Pipeline for Black and Latino Students, Amanda E. Lewis and Michelle J. Manno

3. Testing, No Child Left Behind, and Educational Equity, Linda Darling-Hammond
II. The Diversity Imperative: Postsecondary Institutional and Legal Ramifications

4. A Long View on "Diversity": A Century of American College Admissions Debates, Lisa M. Stulberg and Anthony S. Chen

5. The Diversity Imperative in Elite Admissions, Mitchell L Stevens and Josipa Roksa

6. The Diversity Rationale: Its Limitations for Educational Practice, Mitchell J. Chang and María C. Ledesma

7. The Official Organization of Diversity in American Higher Education: A Retreat from Race? anthony lising antonio and Chris Gonzalez Clarke
Section III. Understanding Progress and Continuing Challenges in American Higher Education

8. Trends in the Education of Underrepresented Racial Minority Students, Peter Teitelbaum

9. Gender Equity in Higher Education, Claudia Buchmann and Thomas A. DiPrete
10. LGBT Students, Faculty, and Staff: Past, Present, and Future Directions, Debbie Bazarsky and Ronni Sanlo

11. Identifying Talent, Interrupting the Usual: Diversifying the Faculty, Daryl G. Smith

12. Asian Americans and Diversity Talk: The Limits of the Numbers Game, Dana Takagi

13. Conservative Critics and Conservative College Students: Variations in Discourses of Exclusion, Amy J. Binder and Kate Wood

14. Explaining Professors’ Politics: Is It a Matter of Self-Selection? Neil Gross and Catherine Cheng

15. Experiences of Exclusion and Marginalization: A Study at the Individual Student Level, Bonita London, Vanessa Anderson, and Geraldine Downey
IV. Future Implications for Diversity: Practice, Policy, and the Law

16. HBCUs: Continued Relevance in the New Century, Sarah Willie-LeBreton

17. The Role of Women’s Colleges in the 21st Century, Leslie Miller-Bernal

18. The New Financial Aid Policies: Their Impact on Access and Equity for Low-Income Students, Bridget Terry Long

19. Improving Assessments of Faculty Diversity, Sharon Lawner Weinberg

20. New Legal Perspectives: Implications for Diversity in the Post-Grutter Era, Lia Epperson