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Brown University women's glee club, including Clara Gomberg, the first Jewish woman to graduate Brown.

“A Jewess Would Not Be Acceptable”

When it came to antisemitism, women’s colleges were no better than the Ivy League.
by Amy Sohn via Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera on May 8, 2025
A standardized test and a pencil, with answers bubbled in.

The Rotting of the College Board

Testing is necessary. The SAT’s creator is not.
by Naomi Schaefer Riley via Commentary on November 13, 2024
A man tacks applications to Princeton University on a bulletin board
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The Rise of the College Application Essay

The essay component of American college applications has a long history, but its purpose has changed over time.
by Sarah Stoller via Made By History on July 11, 2024
Demonstrators with signs supporting affirmative action.
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Why the Supreme Court Endorsed, Then Limited Affirmative Action

The Supreme Court considers new arguments challenging admissions practices that colleges use to select a diverse student body.
via Retro Report on July 25, 2023
Supreme Court building.

The Untold History of Affirmative Action — For White People

To remain exclusively white after Brown v. Board of education, universities created scholarships to send qualified Black students to out-of-state HBCUs instead.
by Leslie T. Fenwick, Valerie Strauss, H. Patrick Swygert via Washington Post on July 18, 2023
Line graph showing decline in minority enrollment at elite schools after California's Proposition 209.

Supreme Court Bans Affirmative Action: What It Means for College Admissions

Lessons on race-neutral admissions from California.
via The Wall Street Journal on June 29, 2023
The Supreme Court building.

Everything We Know about the History of Diversity Is Wrong

And historians aren't exactly helping in the Harvard case currently before the Supreme Court.
by Charles Petersen via Making History on March 19, 2023
Black and white image of Charles Hamilton Houston, standing at a desk alongside other attorneys, circa 1940.

Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and the History Behind Colorblind Admissions

Colorblindness has a long history in college admissions, the Black intellectual tradition, and today’s assault on affirmative action and race-conscious policies.
by Brandon James Render via Black Perspectives on November 4, 2022
Illustrative grid rid of students with the faces represented by various colors, fabric patterns, and textures.

How Affirmative Action Was Derailed by Diversity

The Supreme Court has watered down the policy’s core justification: justice.
by Richard Thompson Ford via The Chronicle of Higher Education on September 2, 2022

The University of Texas’s Secret Strategy to Keep Out Black Students

Long-hidden documents show the school’s blueprint for slowing integration during the civil-rights era.
by Asher Price via The Atlantic on September 19, 2019

Jefferson, Adams, and the SAT’s New Adversity Factor

Discussions of admissions to élite colleges are built around the idea that somewhere around the next bend is the right way to do it.
by Nicholas Lemann via The New Yorker on May 23, 2019
An illustration of three schools on a podium and ranked from first place to third.

College Rankings Were Once a Shocking Experiment

Now they’ve become an American ritual.
by Jake Lundberg via The Atlantic on October 2, 2025
A gate with the dollar signs on the front.

No Change In Elite College Low-Income Enrollment Since 1920s

A comprehensive new study found that the socioeconomic makeup of highly selective colleges is roughly the same as it was a century ago.
by Liam Knox via Inside Higher Ed on November 21, 2024
Torn photos of Clarence Thomas and Sandra Day O'Connor, split by the Grutter decision.

What Justice John Paul Stevens’ Papers Reveal About Affirmative Action

Twenty years ago, Sandra Day O'Connor's deleted draft opinion rejected favoring white applicants over Asian Americans. Why did Clarence Thomas adopt it?
by Jeannie Suk Gersen via The New Yorker on June 20, 2023
Crowd of Black and White workers walking.

Affirmative Action Never Had a Chance

The conservative backlash to the civil-rights era began immediately — and now it’s nearly complete.
by Zak Cheney-Rice via Intelligencer on June 12, 2023
U.S. Supreme Court building where "Equal Justice Under Law" is written in stone.

The Originalist Case for Affirmative Action?

The argument made recently by Kim Forde-Mazrui may not be in good faith, but it does raise important questions about the meaning of the Constitution.
by Tal Fortgang via Law & Liberty on June 5, 2023
Opened standardized test booklet with pencil on top.

Can Standardized Testing Escape Its Racist Past?

High-stakes testing has struggled with overt and implicit biases. Should it still have a place in modern education?
by Deborah Blum via UnDark on December 14, 2022
Black and white scale of justice.

The Blindness of ‘Color-Blindness’

When the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the future of affirmative action, I knew I had to be there.
by Drew Gilpin Faust via The Atlantic on December 2, 2022
Mark Wallinger's "Self-Portrait," a painting showing black dripping paint in the silhouette of an unfurled scroll on a grey background

The Illusion of the First Person

The personal essay is the purest expression of the lie that individual subjectivity exists prior to the social formations that gave rise to it.
by Merve Emre via New York Review of Books on October 11, 2022
Student loan debt activists rally outside the White House a day after President Biden announced a plan that would cancel $10,000 in student loan debt for those making less than $125,000 a year in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 25, 2022.
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The 50-Year Path That Left Millions Drowning in Student Loan Debt

How new student loan programs turned students into consumers — and ignited a competition among universities that left them drowning in debt.
by John R. Thelin via Made By History on September 13, 2022
Governor Ronald Reagan speaking to an audience about the higher education system.

The Origin of Student Debt

In 1970 Roger Freeman, who also worked for Nixon, revealed the right’s motivation for coming decades of attacks on higher education.
by Jon Schwarz via The Intercept on August 25, 2022
Students at Colby College

Harvard–Riverside, Round Trip

In the contemporary United States, higher education does more to exaggerate than relieve class and cultural divisions.
by Mitchell L. Stevens via Public Books on August 11, 2021

It’s Time to Break Up the Ivy League Cartel

Democracy requires something more than a handful of super-rich universities.
by Matt Stoller, Sam Haselby via The Chronicle of Higher Education on May 28, 2021
Student completing standardized test

The Racist Beginnings of Standardized Testing

From grade school to college, students of color have suffered from the effects of biased testing.
by John Rosales, Tim Walker via National Education Association on March 20, 2021

How the War on Drugs Kept Black Men Out of College

A new study finds that federal drug policy didn’t just send more black men to jail—it also locked them out of higher education.
by Tamara Gilkes Borr via The Atlantic on May 15, 2019
Graphic symbolizing a college stopping African Americans from entering the door.

What We Get Wrong About Affirmative Action

The lawsuit against Harvard forces us to talk about Asian Americans' role in the racial equity debate.
via Vox on December 10, 2018
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How the Reagan Administration Stoked Fears of Anti-White Racism

The origins of the politics of “reverse discrimination."
by Justin Gomer, Christopher F. Petrella via Made By History on October 10, 2017
William Merritt Chase with Parsons School of Design students.
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William Merritt Chase, the Accidental Ally

Painter William Merritt Chase opened an art school for a new generation of women, teaching them how to draw as well as how to advocate for themselves.
by Anne Halsey via JSTOR Daily on August 6, 2025
Jimmy Carter receiving an honorary degree from Notre Dame in 1977.

Here’s How Jimmy Carter Changed Higher Education

He tackled segregation in the nation’s public colleges and fraud in student-aid programs, and established the Department of Education.
by Kelly Field via The Chronicle of Higher Education on December 29, 2024

"College Sports: A History"

A new book considers the challenges of controlling the commercialization of college sports.
by Glenn C. Altschuler, David Wippman via Inside Higher Ed on November 26, 2024
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