Civil Rights and Federal Higher Education

With a view toward the future, the editors assert that the thoughtful application of evidence-based solutions to complex policy problems can help establish a more just and equitable system of higher education.
Civil Rights and Federal Higher Education offers a renewed vision for higher education policy making, presenting an incisive analysis of the connections between educational politics and educational inequality. With a view toward the future, the editors assert that the thoughtful application of evidence-based solutions to complex policy problems can help establish a more just and equitable system of higher education.

Edited by Nicholas Hillman and Gary Orfield, the volume focuses on federal policy debates that have significant racial and socioeconomic implications, linking civil rights reforms to contemporary higher education policy issues. Through a mix of history and current events, the chapters highlight how policy has strayed from the Higher Education Act’s intended trajectory of promoting and protecting civil rights. This drift, the editors show, has created far-reaching consequences for students of color, low-income students, and incarcerated students, in addition to the colleges that serve them.

Deftly identifying the social justice dimensions of today’s federal policies, the editors reveal how certain political influences have preserved the interests of powerful and historically advantaged stakeholders—often at the expense of those who are less powerful and most disadvantaged. With great insight, the book’s contributors explore higher education issues such as enrollment at Minority Serving Institutions, for-profit college outcomes, and legal and academic perspectives on affirmative action.

Perhaps more importantly, Civil Rights and Federal Higher Education provides guidance on what can be done to course correct. The book offers short- and long-term policy prescriptions and policy alternatives to help legislative staffers, policy analysts, and researchers plot a way forward.