Brookings: Topics - Race and Ethnicity

What Should the Supreme Court Do About Affirmative Action?

Henry J. Aaron — Mon, 20 May 2013 10:42:00 -0400

Author's note: the following review of the book Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students Its Intended to Help and Why Universities Won’t Admit It by Richard H Sander and Stuart Taylor, Jr. was commissioned by Leon Wieseltier of the New Republic on September 10, 2012. It was submitted on January 30, 2013. No editorial comment having been received to date, I am posting it on the Brookings web site.

The Supreme Court decision in Brown versus Board of Education was a watershed event in several respects. It crowned a lengthy legal campaign to overthrow segregation in public schools. It rapidly widened into a multi-front campaign to assure that African Americans, other minorities, and women would not be excluded from any important aspect of American life. And it invoked social science in support of a fundamental reinterpretation of the Constitution.

Following Brown, it soon became clear that removing legal barriers was not enough to end the legacy of discrimination. Lyndon Johnson’s 1965 speech at Howard University stated bluntly that “We seek not just freedom of opportunity. We seek not just legal equity but human ability, not just equality as a right and a theory but equality as a fact and equality as a result.”

To counter the effects of past discrimination, Johnson said, it is necessary not just to remove barriers but also to offer help. Some assistance was procedural. Selective colleges, universities, and graduate schools began for the first time to recruit minorities actively and to mentor them. Other assistance was substantive, such as making race, sex, or national origin a ‘plus factor’ for jobs, contracts, and college admission. Programs of this sort immediately raised knotty conundrums for law, ethics, and social science. Were they constitutional? Were they fair? Did they work?

The legal problem was obvious. The 14^th amendment states: “No State shall...deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act flatly bars consideration of race in hiring and promotion decisions. Many universities are state chartered and supported. Private and public institutions of higher learning receive federal contracts. The constitution and civil rights laws make no exception for discrimination practiced to redress past injustices.

Ethical issues are also inescapable. Giving African Americans or Hispanics a special break does not increase the number of jobs or slots in university classes. Giving them an edge means pushing others back in the queue. Many of those ‘others’ never personally did anything wrong. If giving such edges to past or present victims of discrimination was accepted, how large an edge was it fair to give and for how long?

In its earliest phases, affirmative action clearly helped its intended beneficiaries. In 1933 when Harold Ickes and his two lieutenants, Clark Foreman and Robert Weaver—later the first black cabinet officer under president Johnson—required that blacks be hired to help build public housing, there could be little doubt that African Americans benefitted from their action. When Richard Nixon’s Secretary of Labor, George Shultz, commented about discrimination in the building industry: “We found a quota system; it was there; it was zero,” there could be no doubt that moving from zero would help those who had been excluded. The nation was so far from the goal of fair treatment of minorities and women that possible conflicts with other objectives seemed remote. But when selective colleges and universities began to admit minority students with comparatively weak academic credentials, many of whom got poor grades and dropped out at distressing rates, a new question arose...did race preferences, at least in higher education, really help those they were intended to help?

Research on the impact of preferential admissions in higher education and litigation over its constitutionality ran on parallel tracks.

The policy of boosting enrollments at selective universities and colleges from what came to be called ‘under-represented minorities’ developed rapidly during the 1960s and 1970s. It coincided with efforts by those institutions to become genuine meritocracies. Although prestigious undergraduate and graduate programs had always favored the academically talented, they also held many slots for the offspring of previous graduates and generous donors. Athletic or artistic skills helped too, of course. Discrimination in admissions was routine, primarily to hold down the numbers of bright kids with the “wrong” religion or cultural background.

Then in the 1960s and 1970s, the weight attached to good grades and high test scores on entrance exams soared. Bragging rights came to those colleges whose entering classes had the highest scores on college entrance examinations. Some slots were still held for the progeny of previous graduates, the well-connected, the financially generous, and the artistically talented or athletically skilled. But academic standards for admission rose at both the undergraduate and graduate level. In simple terms, the ‘good’ schools, more than ever before, became academically excellent.

As far back as the 1970s concern grew that the policy of giving an edge to African Americans, Hispanics, and other members of under-represented minorities, however well-intentioned, might be doing more harm than good. Giving applicants from these groups an edge in admissions necessarily meant that, on the average, they came with weaker academic credentials than did whites. To be sure, selective schools offered matriculants big advantages—enriched environments, good connections, and, to those who graduated, a valued credential. On the other hand, students without adequate preparation might find the work just too difficult. As a result, they might even learn less than they would at less selective institutions. They might suffer stigma or be marked as second-raters or shamed as beneficiaries of unearned advantages, as many critics of affirmative action claim and some supporters fear. The result would be low-academic performance, high drop-out rates, wasted time and money, and, in extreme cases, blighted lives. The risk of these adverse effects would be larger the greater the gap between the student’s preparation and the norm at the institution they attended. This, in brief, was known as the mismatch hypothesis.

Determining whether a mismatch effect actually exists is extremely difficult. Even if admissions were race blind and even if there were no mismatch effect whatsoever, African Americans and Hispanics admitted to selective colleges and universities would predictably have lower grades and graduate a lower rates than do whites. This expectation is in no manner racist. It follows directly from two indisputable facts. African Americans and Hispanics applying to college have lower test scores and high-school grades on the average than do whites; and test scores and grades both are predictive of academic performance.

A hypothetical example illustrates how these two facts will produce different success rates for various groups. Imagine that colleges use an academic index for selecting students. The index can take on three values: 1 (high), 2 (medium), or 3 (low). Those with a higher academic index do better on the average in college than those with a lower score. Imagine also that out of every 100 whites, 35 score 1, and 35 score 2, and that out of every 100 African Americans and Hispanics 10 score 1 and 50 score 2. Selective schools admit only those who score 1 or 2, and they do so in a race-blind manner. Half of whites but only one-sixth of African Americans and Hispanics score 1. Those who score 1 do better in college than those who score 2. It follows that whites will do better in college on the average than will African Americans or Hispanics. This conclusion would not follow if tests and grades under-predicted performance of minorities relative to that of whites. But repeated studies have shown that tests and grades do not under-predict performance of African Americans and Hispanics.

The observation that African Americans and Hispanics who enroll at selective universities have lower qualifications for admission than do whites should therefore come as no surprise. Affirmative action adds to the difference between test scores and grades of entering students. But gaps would exist even if there were no affirmative action, and whether or not mismatch exists.

So, the challenge...how can one tell from the observation that African Americans and Hispanics do less well in college than do whites at selective schools whether this gap results from mechanical reasons of the sort just described or from harm inflicted through mismatch?

Simply comparing grades and graduation rates of various groups is not enough. The undeniable fact that students from under-represented minorities get poorer grades and drop out more often than white students do proves nothing about whether affirmative action helps or hurts its intended beneficiaries. One could go further and measure whether students at selective institutions do better or worse than do students with similar test scores and grades at other colleges and universities.

That is just what Derek Bok and William Bowen, former presidents of Harvard and Princeton, respectively, did in their evocatively titled book, The Shape of the River. This study, published in 1998, drew on a rich data set developed with the support of the Mellon Foundation, which Bowen then headed. The survey reported on a large data set—College and Beyond—reporting the college experiences, graduation rates, and subsequent earnings of 93,660 students who graduated from thirty-four select universities and colleges in 1951, 1976, and 1989. Using statistical techniques that controlled for the expected influence of high-school grades, pre-college admission tests, race, and certain other characteristics, the authors found that African-American students who attended elite universities did as well as or better than African-American student who attended less elite institutions. The authors reported that they found no evidence to support the mismatch hypothesis.

The Bok-Bowen study was highly influential. The authors are highly respected. The survey was large. The information it contained was broad and detailed. Even so, the survey data were not ideally suited to test the effects of affirmative action. The earliest surveyed cohort attended college before affirmative action was much practiced and it is not clear to what extent that cohort drove the results. The data came mostly from highly selective institutions. Furthermore, because the data have not been freely available, few scholars could check the Bok-Bowen findings or do additional analysis. The importance of making data available so that other scholars may try to replicate results and identify errors hardly needs emphasis in light of recent controversies regarding the impact of government debt on economic growth.

Bowen and other co-authors revisited the question of how college affects students in 2009 with a new study, Crossing the Finish Line, based on an even larger survey. This study reported on the experiences of 124,522 freshmen who began college in 1999 at one of fifty-seven four-year public universities. These institutions were generally less selective than those included in the College and Beyond survey. Bowen reported some startling results. Regardless of the quality of the high schools that students attended, their grades predicted college performance far better than did standardized tests. The 2009 study also confirmed the major finding of The Shape of the River—that after controlling for high-school grades, test scores, race, and socio-economic status, students were more likely to graduate from more selective than from less selective universities. Once again, Bowen and his co-authors found no evidence to support the mismatch—what they called the ‘over-match’—hypothesis. Students are well-advised, they said, to enroll in the most selective institution that will accept them.

Critics questioned whether the Bok-Bowen studies provided support for affirmative action. Invoking considerations of fairness, Stephen and Abigail Thernstrom noted that high graduation rates from elite institutions reflected not only the high qualifications of enrollees, but the high expectations for graduation at them. Besides, they emphasized, giving a race- or ethnicity-based edge to some necessarily involves a race- or ethnicity-based handicap for others. One of those groups with a race-based handicap, they noted, are Asians, whose academic credentials on the average outshine those of whites and who suffered much discrimination in American history.

Others argued that ordinary survey data are inherently inadequate to test the mismatch hypothesis. No survey can measure all educationally-relevant student characteristics. Specifically, surveys cannot measure aspirations or mental toughness, which are relevant to educational outcome and may be correlated with the schools students attend. Many social scientists argue that the best way, and sometimes the only adequate way, to test the effect of an intervention is the randomized experiment. Such methods are routine in medical and agricultural research, but they are not normally available to those testing the effects of affirmative action. Students cannot be randomly assigned to colleges. And, even if they could be, the very act would color the results. Normally, analysts are stuck with survey data. They can do no more than control statistically for every influence they can measure and hope that omitted factors are not very important.

From the earliest years of affirmative action, those denied admission to schools that gave minorities a race-based or ethnicity-based edge have challenged the practice in court. In 1978, the Supreme Court ruled in The Regents of the University of California v. Bakke that the constitution barred the university from setting aside a fixed number of slots in its medical school class for under-represented minorities. But, universities could use race as a ‘plus’ factor in pursuit of ‘diversity,’ which, the Court said, is a legitimate educational goal. To this day, however, the Court has not defined exactly what diversity is or how one would know if it had been achieved.

Breaking with Bakke, the federal Circuit Court serving Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi ruled in 1995 in Hopwood v. Texas that the University of Texas Law School could not use race as a factor in admissions. The case never got to the Supreme Court, however, because Texas dropped the challenged admissions practices.

Seven years later, the Supreme Court heard a pair of challenges to admission practices at the University of Michigan. For undergraduate admissions, Michigan used a point scale based on grades, test scores, and other factors. One hundred points assured admission. Under-represented minorities received 20 points automatically. In Gratz v. Bollinger, by a 5-4 margin, the Court reaffirmed that the pursuit of diversity is a legitimate goal, but it ruled that Michigan’s procedure was not ‘narrowly tailored,’ did not in general treat each applicant individually, resembled a quota system, which the Court had disallowed in Bakke, and was therefore unacceptable.

At the same time, also by a 5-4 vote, the Court upheld a race-conscious admission policy by the Michigan Law School. In Grutter v. Bollinger, the court said that the use of race was acceptable because the law school considered many factors and did so on an individual basis. The swing vote in both cases and author of the opinion of the Court was the now-retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who has been succeeded by Justice Samuel Alito, widely thought to be less sympathetic than O’Connor to affirmative action.

The legal history is marked by chaotic disagreement. Not only has the court been divided, but the majorities have disagreed in the reasoning that has led to their judgments. For strong minded, independent jurists to reach a common position by different reasoning is not unusual. But the opinions reflect unresolvable internal conflicts. The Constitution guarantees equal protection, irrespective of race, national origin, sex, and age. Yet, American history is redolent of despicable violations of those principles. When, at last, Congress and private groups began to take steps to counter the legacy of discrimination, the highest court has been willing to curb, but not bar, these measures—at least, not yet.

While the idea that the best qualified people should get jobs, the best proposal should win the contract, and the best students should be admitted to selective colleges commands widespread support, few people adhere rigidly to the principles of meritocracy. They understand that in many cases no clear or reliable metrics exist for measuring merit. Furthermore, once one acknowledges that colleges and universities may legitimately consider factors other than test scores and grades in determining which applicants should be admitted, it is inevitable that some students refused admission will be better qualified on academic grounds than those admitted.

The point made in virtually every legal brief by a litigant complaining of discrimination because an African American or Hispanic with lower test scores or a weaker academic record was admitted reflects a profound confusion—such a result is inescapable once other criteria for admission are allowed to influence results. And because race, musical talent, athletic skills, and other non-academic characteristics predict academic performance less well than do grades and test scores, it is likely that those admitted because of such ‘non-academic’ qualifications will perform less well, on the average, than those admitted for purely academic reasons. Their grades are likely to be lower and they are likely to graduate at lower rates than those with stronger grades and test scores. Other influences, such as compensatory programs for the ill-prepared, easy grading (for athletes), or enrollment in ‘gut’ courses can partly or fully offset such tendencies. But the tendency is basic.

The issue of whether affirmative action in education is constitutional has returned to the Supreme Court docket. On February 21, 2012 the Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in the case of Fisher v. Texas. Oral arguments took place on October 10, 2012. Outside interest in the case has been intense. The court received 90 ‘friend of the court’ (amicus curiae) briefs from interested parties, including social scientists.

Following the Hopwood decision, Texas adopted a simple policy of admitting applicants in the top 10 percent of Texas high-school graduating classes. Although the top-10-percent formula sacrifices some academic selectivity, it is a transparently reasonable admissions policy for a state-chartered institution dependent on state funds for part of its budget. It does not explicitly involve race or ethnic origin, but de facto residential segregation guarantees that this formula will result in the admission of more African Americans and Latinos than if admissions were based on test scores. Since its adoption, this formula has accounted for 60 to 80 percent of undergraduate admissions to the University of Texas. Following the Grutter decision, which sanctioned admission policies that considered race in a narrowly targeted, individual manner, Texas instituted what it called a “holistic” process to govern other admissions. The holistic admissions procedure uses both an academic index, based on test scores and grades, and a personal achievement index based on a wide range of other factors including two essays, family background, activities in the community and elsewhere, and race.

Ms. Fisher, a white Texas high school graduate, was in the 12^th percent of her class and therefore was not admitted on the 10 percent plan. Nor was she admitted through the alternative selection process. She was offered a place on a waiting list, which she refused. She challenged the constitutionality of the Texas admission policy, claiming that but for her race she would have been admitted and was thereby unconstitutionally denied equal protection under the law.

The briefs of the parties to the case focus on whether the use of race in the Texas formula does or does not qualify as ‘limited and individualized,’ as specified by Justice O’Connor in Grutter v. Bollinger. But the court may go further by limiting or overturning Grutter, and at least four justices are thought to be disposed to do so. Persuasive evidence that affirmative action harms those it is intended to help would buttress the ethical foundation for such a position. One of the amicus briefs, by UCLA law professor Richard Sander and legal journalist Stuart Taylor, argues just that. Their book, Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It’s Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won’t Admit It, is a lengthy and rich argument in support of this position. So significant is this indictment of affirmative action that another amicus brief, by a veritable Who’s Who of empirical social scientists is devoted to rebutting the Sander/Taylor brief. Social scientists submitted several other amicus briefs, some in support of Ms. Fisher’s appeal, some opposed.

Mismatch extends and elaborates an indictment of affirmative action first presented by Sander in 2004 in a Stanford Law Review article. That article provoked intense controversy, personal invective, and allegations of data suppression. Mismatch recounts this controversy in score-settling detail and is, thus, also a personal memoir and an expose of intellectual politics in the academy, as well as a layman’s guide to social science research on a tricky subject. Co-author Stuart Taylor comes to this tale with the background of having written Until Proven Innocent, a chilling and devastating expose of the way a rogue—and subsequently disbarred—district attorney railroaded Duke lacrosse players after a stripper falsely accused them of rape, and tells how Duke faculty members and administrators rushed to condemn the players despite abundant warning signs of prosecutorial abuse.

Sander and Taylor do not argue that affirmative action is inherently harmful to its intended beneficiaries, but rather that it is pushed to a damaging extreme. To make their case, they lay out a theory of how affirmative action, as practiced by the most select universities and colleges, ramifies through much of higher education. A few top universities are able to attract most of the academically able African Americans and Hispanics. Although the academic credentials of these students, on the average, are not as strong as those of their white or Asian classmates, these African-Americans and Hispanic students are mostly able to handle the academic challenges they face at these top schools. Sander and Taylor argue that is why Bok and Bowen found that most of the minority students they surveyed graduate and do well professionally.

But that is just part of the story. The selective institutions, Sander and Taylor argue, so seriously deplete the limited pool of academically well-qualified minorities that lower tier schools, also trying to meet affirmative action goals, admit applicants with credentials so weak that these students do less well than they would at still less selective institutions. Mismatch can be inferred as well, Sander and Taylor argue, from the finding that a larger proportion of students with a given SAT score major in the difficult STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and math) at less-selective than at more selective schools.

The reasoning is straightforward. First-level courses in these fields that serve as pre-requisites for upper division study weed out students who are comparatively weak at the institutions they are attending. Because affirmative action allows minority students to attend colleges where their academic preparation is comparatively weak, such students are more likely to get weeded out than they would be had they attended less-selective colleges and universities, where their academic preparation would have been more competitive.

The strongest evidence for the mismatch hypothesis comes not from data on undergraduate admissions but from information on law school graduates. The American Bar Association compiled data on thousands of law school graduates from a wide range of law schools—the Bar Passage Study (BPS). Because student grades and class rank depend, in part, on the average academic strength of classmates, students with a given academic index are more likely to get better grades at lower ranked law schools than they would at higher ranked law schools. Furthermore, African American and Hispanic students covered in the BPS were the beneficiaries of sizeable race- and ethnicity-based admission preferences at most law schools.

Based on data from the BPS, Sander and Taylor report two findings that, they argue, suggest mismatch. First, African American and Hispanic law school graduates with similar academic index scores (based on undergraduate performance) to those of whites passed the bar at lower rates than did whites. But if one controlled for both academic index and law school grade point average, there was no significant difference in passage rates of African Americans, Hispanics, and Whites. The reason why relative class standing influences bar passage, they argue, is that instruction and grading are geared to the median student in each school. Students who are weaker than average at a given school will find it hard to keep up, will learn less than they would if instruction was geared to their level of preparation, and will therefore pass the bar exam at lower rates than they would had they attended a school better tailored to for their academic skills. This finding implies that law school students should not follow the advice from Bok and Bowen gave to undergraduates—go to the most selective school that will admit you—but should instead be very careful not to over-reach.

Could both Bok/Bowen and Sander/Taylor be correct? The curricula at professional and graduate schools are notoriously austere. The environment in law school is ruthlessly meritocratic to an extent true of few undergraduate programs. If the conditions between undergraduate and graduate schools and among undergraduate programs are sufficiently different, affirmative action might help in some cases and hurt in others.

An intense intellectual battle followed Sander’s 2004 article and continues to this day. One exchange illustrates how hard the issues are analytically and how difficult it is to reach consensus. Two members of the Yale Law School faculty, Ian Ayres and Richard Brooks, noted that not all African Americans surveyed in the BPS accepted admission letters from the schools they had listed as their first choices. Some went to lower choice schools that were mostly less selective than the first choice schools. The students in the two groups were otherwise similar. If mismatch were a problem, they reasoned, students who went to first choice schools would be more likely to get low grades and less likely to pass the bar than those who went to less select schools. In an initial draft, Ayres and Brooks found no such differences and stated that the evidence provided no support for the mismatch hypothesis.

Sander reports that Ayres and Brooks shared their analysis with him and that he pointed out errors, which they then corrected. After the corrections were made, Sander and Taylor claim that the corrected results closely match what the mismatch hypothesis suggests—those students who did not go to their first-choice, relatively select law schools got better grades, graduated at a higher rate, and were more likely to pass the bar on their first try. But, they assert, Ayres and Brooks refused to modify the text of their initial draft. In addition, Ayres and Brooks are among the signers of the amicus brief by quantitative social scientists which is highly critical of the methods that Sander and Taylor use. This brief states flatly: “Sander’s research has major methodological flaws—misapplying basic principles of causal inference—that call into doubt his controversial conclusions about affirmative action....Sander’s research does not constitute credible evidence that affirmative action practices are harmful to minorities....”

Quite apart from the analytical case that Sander and Taylor make against affirmative action, Mismatch is an expose of politics and back-biting in the academy. It charges that those controlling what should be publicly available data refuse access to people who it is feared will come up with politically objectionable answers. It charges critics with refusals to admit demonstrable mistakes. Both Taylor’s earlier book on the Duke rape case and Mismatch report enough unreasoned and unreasonable behavior in the name of political correctness to make one gag. Most importantly, Mismatch charges universities and colleges with a stunning lack of candor regarding the extent of affirmative action and refusal to provide data with which analysts could evaluate its effects.

Although Mismatch indicts affirmative action in its current form, Sander and Taylor recommend that affirmative action be modified not ended. They note that minorities who are favored by affirmative action disproportionately come from favored socio-economic groups, children of professionals and others with higher education. They recommend that racial preferences be no larger than preferences based on financial need and socioeconomic status. The emergence of growing economic inequality heightens the appeal of class-based affirmative action. Precisely how such balancing of racial, socio-economic, and needs-based factors might be achieved is not explained in the book. Others have also urged class-based affirmative action as both fairer and politically more acceptable than race-based affirmative action—notably, Richard Kahlenberg who has taken that position for nearly two decades. Unfortunately, Sander and Taylor leave a key question unanswered—if current race-based affirmative action harms intended beneficiaries, why wouldn’t a mix of some race-based and some class-based affirmative action also do so?

Particularly troubling for a technically minded reader/reviewer is the absence from a book running to nearly 300 pages of any clear, technical presentation of the mismatch hypothesis. The authors say at the outset that in order to keep the book to a reasonable length, they are omitting ‘technical or elaborating material’ but that such details can be found at their website. At various other points in the book, readers are also advised that they can find further detail at the same web site. As I write this review and after personal contact with both authors, the website remains without such supporting material.

What conclusions should the Court and the public take from Mismatch and the cacophony of conflicting research on the effects of affirmative action? First, universities and colleges should provide qualified analysts access to data on admission practices. It is not credible that universities would suffer irreparable damage if their admission practices were publicized. Nor is it believable that minorities who benefit from racial preferences would wilt from the stigma if these practices were spelled out. The failure of colleges and universities to divulge data on the way affirmative action operates should not be tolerated. The best way to correct any over-use or misuse of affirmative action is not to ban it but to insist that its operation be illuminated with hard data and further analysis.

Second, on the major theme—the charge that affirmative action hurts its intended beneficiaries—I believe that judgment must still be withheld. Sander and Taylor present a powerful case that it does so in particular instances. But the character of college and university programs and their objectives is enormously varied. It is much more important to make sure that African Americans and Hispanics are well-represented among tomorrow’s public officials and business leaders and that they are well trained than it is to assure racial or ethnic diversity among tomorrow’s mathematicians and biomedical researchers. Meritocratic values have their place. So too do the values of inclusiveness. If there was ever a place where one size does not fit all, it is in the treatment of affirmative action within the academy.

Authors

Henry J. Aaron

Image Source: © Jose Luis Magaua / Reuters

Can Explosions Be a Blessing in Disguise in Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question?

Kemal Kirişci — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 16:00:00 -0400

Two minor explosions Tuesday night in Turkey’s capital city of Ankara come at a critical juncture. The Turkish government has been negotiating with the imprisoned leader of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan, to bring an end to an almost decade long violence. These negotiations are taking place at a time when the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) have seen its support among Kurds diminish considerably. The Kurdish vote had played an important role in helping the AKP come to power back in November 2002. These votes have reacquired importance as the Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, contemplates whether to take a new constitution that would replace Turkey’s parliamentary system with a presidential one to a national referendum. The new constitution is expected to redefine Turkish citizenship in more liberal terms to the benefit of Kurds but also enable Erdogan to circumvent a self-imposed ban on serving more than three terms as a member of parliament. The negotiations are also seen as a means of addressing questions about the quality of Turkish democracy and concerns about rising authoritarianism. When these developments are put together with a growing recognition both among Kurds as well as Turks of the need to bring the violence to an end, it may well enhance the likelihood of this round of negotiations achieving where earlier attempts failed.

Öcalan had been leading a separatist insurgency since 1984 with the objective of setting up an independent Kurdish state in parts of Turkey and in neighboring countries populated by Kurds. Syria provided him with sanctuary until 1998, when he was forced out of the country following a threat of Turkish military intervention in Syria. After attempting to seek asylum in a number of countries, Öcalan was eventually caught in Kenya (with CIA assistance) and sentenced to life imprisonment on the island of Imralı near Istanbul. This was followed by a unilaterally declared cease-fire by the PKK and a difficult European Union (EU) led reform process which contributed to the granting of cultural rights to Kurds in Turkey. These rights ranged from the recognition of Kurdish identity, to the right to use the Kurdish language publically and in broadcasting. These were revolutionary developments in a country that had denied and repressed Kurdish identity since the early days the Turkish republic and had seen almost 40,000 people killed by violence since 1984.

The gradual emergence of new leadership from the ranks of the PKK, accompanied by a vacuum created by the U.S. intervention in Iraq led to the return of violence in the summer of 2004. This violence led to the deaths of an ever growing number of young Turkish conscripts, some of them inevitably of Kurdish origin, as well as PKK militants and coincided with a period when Turkey’s relations with the EU weakened. Nevertheless, in 2009, the Turkish government launched a “Kurdish initiative” with the intention of solving the “Kurdish problem” for good. The government did succeed in negotiating the laying down of arms by the PKK and their return to Turkey from northern Iraq where they continue to hold bases to this day. This initial step was meant to start a political process to “solve” the Kurdish problem in Turkey but it went haywire when militants put on a show of force as they entered Turkey from the border post of Habur in the fall of 2009. The pictures from Habur immediately provoked a nationalist backlash and Erdoğan, who had once adopted a reconciliatory discourse on the Kurdish issue chose to revert to a traditional anti-Kurdish populist stance used in the 1980s and 90s prior to the reform process. In sharp contrast to his 2005 position where he publicly acknowledged the sufferings of Kurds at the hands of the Turkish state and promised a political solution, Erdoğan argued there was no longer a Kurdish problem in Turkey. He argued that at most, there were problems experienced by individual citizens of Kurdish ethnicity, and that these problems would be addressed with increased ‘democracy and rule of law’.

These remarks led to a sharp decrease in popularity for the prime minister among Kurds and to the founding of the BDP, a Kurdish nationalist political party, which was elected to power at the local and national levels in 2009 and 2011. The rise of the BDP led to the virulent articulation of Kurdish political demands ranging from the use of the Kurdish language in the provision of local government services in Kurdish populated regions of Turkey to the introduction of education in Kurdish. These demands were also accompanied by increased calls for territorial autonomy for the Kurdish inhabited regions of Turkey which was also supported by Öcalan. Together with the explosion in violence, these developments led to the introduction of repressive policies by the Turkish government where an ever growing number of local Kurdish officials, politicians and journalists being imprisoned, deeply tainting Turkey’s democratic credentials. These developments created a very tense situation in Turkey at a time when the Arab Spring had just begun and Turkey was being presented as a model for the Arab world’s transformation by some, while others drew attention to Turkey’s inability to resolve its own Kurdish problem.

The pressure to address the Kurdish problem in Turkey was compounded by a growing level of frustration and fatigue from violence felt across the country as well as a constitution writing process that was going nowhere. It is against this background that the prime minister sought to bring an end to the violence with a cease-fire by authorizing the head of Turkish intelligence to hold secret talks with PKK counterparts in Oslo between 2008 and 2011. Opponents of the prime minister and this scheme, however, leaked records of these talks, provoking an abrupt suspension of the talks. The prime minister, having emerged triumphant from the national elections in the summer of 2011, persevered and in late 2012 he was able to engage the BDP in a similar but more open exercise that came to be known as the “Imralı process” which allowed repeated visits by BDP representatives and Turkish officials to Öcalan. An early attempt to derail talks by assassinating three long standing female PKK militants in Paris in January of 2013 failed as both sides of the process remained committed to it. The two explosions on Tuesday night clearly had the intention of undermining the “Imralı process” but also of preempting Öcalan’s long awaited Newroz announcement on Thursday. The question of who might have mounted these two attacks may very soon be revealed as the perpetrators have been promptly caught.

The fact that these attacks have only caused minor injuries to two individuals and some structural damage to the headquarters of AKP, may turn out to be a blessing in disguise as the initial signs appear to suggest that the “Imralı process’ will not be adversely affected. Actually, it does not look like that these explosions will unravel the negotiations. Instead they will remind the public once more about their revulsion against violence and are likely to reinforce both parties commitment to the process. Right now neither AKP nor BDP want to be seen as the spoiler. However, whether the “Imralı process” will finally lead to a political resolution of the Kurdish problem in Turkey beyond just another cease-fire is yet to be seen.

Authors

Kemal Kirişci

Image Source: © Stringer Turkey / Reuters

Subjective and Objective Indicators of Racial Progress

Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Abstract

Progress in closing differences in many objective outcomes for blacks relative to whites has slowed, and even worsened, over the past three decades. However, over this period the racial gap in wellbeing has shrunk. In the early 1970s data revealed much lower levels of subjective well-being among blacks relative to whites. Investigating various measures of well-being, we find that the well-being of blacks has increased both absolutely and relative to that of whites. While a racial gap in well-being remains, two-fifths of the gap has closed and these gains have occurred despite little progress in closing other racial gaps such as those in income, employment, and education. Much of the current racial gap in well-being can be explained by differences in the objective conditions of the lives of black and white Americans. Thus making further progress will likely require progress in closing racial gaps in objective circumstances.

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Subjective and Objective Indicators of Racial Progress

Authors

Betsey Stevenson
Justin Wolfers

Image Source: © Mike Blake / Reuters

New Year's Resolution for Congress Should Be Passing Immigration Reform

Jill Wilson — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Amid all the talk of the fiscal cliff and debt ceiling, White House and congressional staffers are working behind the scenes on negotiating some consensus on another major issue: immigration reform. If they can deliver a Christmas present in the form of avoiding the fiscal cliff, then passing immigration reform should be their New Year’s resolution.

Resolutions are based on a desire to improve one’s life in some way. Often, they originate from a need that has gone unmet for some time. Take weight loss--the perennial favorite. If you’ve wanted to lose weight for a while, but were recently told by your doctor that you were morbidly obese, chances are your survival instinct would kick in and you’d have renewed motivation to address the problem. If you’ve put it off for a decade, it’s going to be tougher because you’ve probably gained more weight in the meantime. Yet the goal is no less important; in fact, you could argue that its importance has increased. It is the same with reforming our immigration system.

Following President Obama’s reelection, helped in no small part by the growing Latino electorate, Republicans’ survival instinct has kicked in and it has renewed their motivation to address the problem of a dysfunctional immigration system. Immigration reform has been put off for a decade, at least, and achieving consensus on such a complicated and politicized issue looks tougher in today’s political climate than it did in 2001, for example, when Mexican President Vicente Fox and President George W. Bush were in talks to tackle “the whole enchilada.” And yet, in the last month, the door is suddenly open for achieving meaningful, bipartisan reform following Mitt Romney’s loss and his failure to draw Latino voters, attributed by many to his tough immigration rhetoric during the campaign.

Achieving a New Year’s resolution takes hard work and sacrifice, and immigration reform is no different. Both parties will need to sacrifice.

Republicans must commit to a legalization program. Their recent passage of the STEM Jobs Act in the House was portrayed as a sign that the GOP was willing to work on immigration reform. Yet the bill was in the works before the election, and it does little or nothing to appeal to Latinos. Not surprisingly, Senate Democrats blocked the bill.

If Republicans want to show that they really mean business, they should be willing to tackle the tough stuff first. If they come up with a legalization plan that Democrats can agree to, it would go a long way toward smoothing the road for full reform, including a robust enforcement system and a realignment of future visas to better meet our needs for both high- and low-skilled workers.

For their part, Democrats must be willing to consider scrapping the diversity visa, a lottery-based system of green cards given to 55,000 foreigners annually from countries of “low immigration.” (Note that only 18 countries are not considered “low immigration.”) This program, created in 1990 and benefiting mostly Europeans and Africans, has outlived its purpose. Africans are now the fastest-growing immigrant group, and they and others now have significant numbers here who are eligible to sponsor relatives. In recent years, both the House and the Senate have voted to eliminate the program.

Another potential sacrifice for Democrats is the visa category for siblings of naturalized citizens. As Congress debates what the “future flow” of immigrants to the U.S. should be, there are strong economic arguments for shifting away from family-based immigration to employment-based visas. Currently, two-thirds of green cards issued annually are family-based, far higher than in countries like Canada, Australia, or the United Kingdom. Employment-based visas make up 14 percent of U.S. admissions each year, compared with half of visas issued by the U.K. and two-thirds by Canada. The easiest family category to eliminate would be the adult brothers and sisters (and their families) of U.S. citizens, who account for about 6 percent of all green cards.

So while we wait in tense anticipation to see if Santa will deliver a deal on the fiscal cliff or a lump of coal, let’s hope Congress can get serious about its New Year’s resolution to tackle immigration reform. Our survival—politically, economically, and morally—depends on it. Like all meaningful resolutions, this one requires hard work and sacrifice.

Authors

Jill Wilson

Publication: National Journal

Image Source: © Molly Riley / Reuters

America’s Changing Demographic Landscape: New Projections from the Census Bureau

William H. Frey — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0500

America’s population is growing more racially diverse and, in 30 years, the nation will have a new majority—a majority composed of minorities. New projections from the Census Bureau suggest that the country’s white population is shrinking as the number of minorities rapidly grows. Senior Fellow William Frey says this change presents both challenges and opportunities to education policies, employment and politics. We should start preparing for the shift soon, he says.

Video

America’s Changing Demographic Landscape: New Projections from the Census Bureau

Authors

William H. Frey

Census Projects New “Majority Minority” Tipping Points

William H. Frey — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Editor's Note: Based on new Census data, the U.S. Census Bureau recently released its first set of U.S. population projections for 2012-2060; the data reveals projections of the nation’s population by age, race and Hispanic origin for the next 50 years. William Frey further discusses these projections and how they will reverberate through U.S. politics, education system, and labor force. Also featured are William Frey ‘s related publications, which discuss and highlight key trends in the U.S. demographic shift.

In the wake of a presidential election that underscored the rising political clout of fast growing minority groups, the Census Bureau’s new population projections reiterate the trend. These projections, the first to take account of the 2010 Census results, paint a picture of a nation that will become increasingly diverse, beginning at the bottom of the age distribution.

Nationally, the new projection posits a “majority-minority” population by 2043, but for younger age groups, the tipping points will come much earlier: 2018 for children under age 18. This reflects the recent growth of younger new minority populations including Hispanics, Asians, and those identifying as “multiracial.” It also reflects a stagnant, aging white population expected to by decline by 10 percent from 2012 to 2060.

The new projections anticipate slower national growth than the earlier 2008-based projections, by building in lower immigration and fertility assumptions, in keeping with recently observed shifts. Thus, the national population benchmark of 400 million (up from 314 million today) is not expected to be reached until 2051, versus 2039 in the older projections. Still the nation’s combined minority population is expected grow from 116 million in 2012 to 241 million in 2060. This translates into growth rates of 142 percent, 116 percent and 256 percent for the Hispanic, Asian, and multiracial populations, respectively. Blacks are expected to grow by 50 percent.

The white population in contrast is expected to increase from 197 million in 2012 to a 199 million peak in 2024, and then decline to 179 million in 2060. This white peak population is smaller and occurs earlier than with the older projections, peaking at 207 million in 2031, reflecting an earlier onset of white natural decrease (deaths outnumbering births).

The increasingly shrinking white population is also a consequence of lower white fertility. This is partly responsible for the majority-minority tipping point for children moving up to the year 2018, compared with 2023 in the older projections. As young minorities age, the majority-minority tipping points get reached in later years for subsequently higher ages. The 45-64 age group doesn’t tip until 2051, and the over age 65 population is still majority white in 2060.

The older population stays whiter because the large and mostly white baby boom population just entering retirement beefs up those older ages. Thus the biggest diversity transformation will continue to take place in the younger ages as white populations decline and minority populations gain. Thus even in 2060 the white senior population is substantially less racially and ethnically diverse than younger age groups—especially children.

Of course, these shifts will reverberate through our politics, the education system, and our labor force.

Much heralded in the last election, the 18-to-29 age group, of which minorities made up a substantial component, will continue to be the most racially diverse. As soon as the 2020 presidential election, this age group will be comprised of 47 percent minorities, including 23 percent Hispanics, many more of whom will be eligible voters than in the past election. By 2028, minorities will be a majority of this population.

There will be a continual transformation the nation’s age 5-to-17 school aged population which will become majority-minority in 2020. At that time, Hispanics will comprise 26 percent, blacks 14 percent, and Asians 5 percent. While many school systems in more diverse parts of the country have begun to adapt to student populations of different cultural backgrounds and languages spoken at home, these numbers make plain that school systems across the nation will stand on the front lines of change.

Our labor force aged population will not turn majority minority until 2038. However, over the 18 year period, from 2012 to 2030, most of the largely white baby boom generation will be graduating out of those ages. The 18-to-64 population will show a decline of 14 million whites, but a gain of 23 million minorities, of which 15 million are Hispanics—rendering minorities and especially Hispanics as the backbone of future labor force growth.

These projections also indicate the population will be aging, which along with a growing number of children will increase the number of dependents per worker. Still the ages of these dependents will differ by racial and ethnic group. For whites, the ratio of children to seniors falls below 1.0 as the number of white seniors exceeds white children in 2016 and throughout the projection period. But for Hispanics the ratio ranges from 5.6 to 1.7 over the projection period. This reflects another way that the younger Hispanic population is faced with different kinds of concerns than the older white population, affecting their voting preferences and our national policies.

Overall, the new census projections place an exclamation point on the fact that we are becoming a more racially diverse society beginning with our youth. Just like the postwar baby boom generation, which by virtue of its size and independent character, influenced all aspects of our economy and social institutions as it aged up the life cycle, so too will today’s younger minority infused generation help to shape all aspects of our national life as they move into middle age. It’s crucial for politicians, community leaders, and policymakers to pay attention to these changes as their decisions about how to incorporate this generation into the new American mainstream hold important implications for our nation’s future prosperity.

Video

America’s Changing Demographic Landscape: New Projections from the Census Bureau

Authors

William H. Frey

The Door for Immigration Reform is Open. But How Wide?

Neil Ruiz — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 14:00:00 -0500

The 2012 elections illustrated how the emergence of a new American mainstream played an important role in re-electing President Obama, potentially opening the door for debate, compromise, and action on immigration reform. This past Wednesday, President Obama expressed confidence that immigration reform is possible early in the beginning of his second term. Despite a divided Congress, it is in the interest of both sides of the aisle to fix America’s immigration system.

Three main issues bear consideration:

Agreement found in high-skilled immigration. As I’ve said previously, there is concern that the United States has fallen behind in the skilled worker race and employers have unmet demand for high-skilled immigrant workers. In the last working days before the congressional recess for the elections, the majority of the Republican controlled House of Representatives voted for Lamar Smith’s STEM Jobs Act to provide 55,000 green cards to foreign-born graduates from U.S. universities with advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Although there was consensus on creating a STEM visa there was not enough time to negotiate the details of the bill between leaders. Another issue raised this year was to create visas for immigrant entrepreneurs. Vivek Wadhwa’s new research shows the visa challenges high-skilled immigrants face when starting up innovative new companies. The Startup Act 2.0 was designed to address those challenges and had bipartisan support for creating 50,000 STEM Green Cards and 75,000 visas for immigrant entrepreneurs.

Balancing immigration reform with the existing workforce. One major difficulty legislators will face with immigration reform is trying to find the balance between high unemployment and opening the doors for immigrants. In September, Microsoft proposed “A New National Talent Strategy” to allow an additional 20,000 H-1B visas and 20,000 Green Cards for foreign graduates who hold advanced degrees in the STEM fields from U.S. universities with a $10k and $15k price tag that would raise about $500 million dollars per year for STEM education for the American workforce. As the Brookings report “The Search for Skills” released last July showed, only $1 billion dollars raised from H-1B visa fees for workforce training and STEM education in the existing workforce over the past decade. Tying visa fees to workforce development and education funds is one way of finding this balance.

Debate over the undocumented and other issues. The most difficult and controversial aspect of immigration reform is how to integrate immigrants already living on American soil. The Latino vote opened the door for Congress to transform the deferred action of undocumented youth from deportation into an actual DREAM Act that would offer legal status and a path to citizenship. There also may be an opportunity for leaders to tackle the most controversial immigration issue: expanding legal status for undocumented immigrants. There are many other issues that Congress can tackle such as raising the cap on H-1B visas, family unification, integration programs, country-level caps, or developing a standing commission to use economic indicators for determining immigrant visa levels.

The doors are now open for immigration reform. The question is how wide will policymakers open the door for immigrants?

Authors

Neil Ruiz

Publication: The Avenue, The New Republic

Image Source: © Jonathan Alcorn / Reuters

A New Starting Point for Immigration Reform

Audrey Singer — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 16:30:00 -0500

The surprising strength of the Latino vote in the 2012 presidential election has created an incentive for the Republican Party, poor performers with Latinos, to rethink their strategy for 2016. It’s also driving calls for change to the nation’s immigration laws. In the past week, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have spoken publicly about the need for a comprehensive approach to immigration reform.

The focus remains on Latinos because they are expected to grow their number of voters by 40 percent, and the Pew Hispanic Center projects the Latino electorate will double in size by 2030.

President Obama plans to get to work on the issue after his inauguration in January. Senators Schumer and Graham are reinvigorating their vision of comprehensive reform, last seen in 2010, by starting up discussions with their congressional colleagues.

The post-election moment for immigration reform also includes Republican leaders such as John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and Marco Rubio and conservative voices, such as Sean Hannity and Charles Krauthammer, who have stated clearly that comprehensive immigration reform is the only way to go.

But what does “comprehensive” reform look like? It depends on who you ask. A comprehensive approach typically includes border security, worksite enforcement, including a reliable verification system with a tamper-resistant ID card, and changes to the admissions system to admit more immigrants that are economically suited to the US market. But “comprehensive reform” most importantly means that there will be a policy that deals with the estimated 11 million people living in the United States without legal status.

This is a new starting point in the debate over reforming immigration policy.

What’s at stake is whether reform will include a pathway to legal status that includes citizenship or not. The “pathway to citizenship” ideal held by advocates, the public, and some partisan leaders, is a phased, earned process that ultimately ends in citizenship if the immigrant chooses to naturalize. The process takes years after immigrants undergo background checks, English language classes, demonstrate they have paid taxes, and pay a fine, among other measures. They must go to the “the back of the line” in fairness to others who have been waiting for green cards. Then they must meet the residency requirements to apply for naturalization. Under various legalization scenarios that have been proposed in the past, obtaining citizenship could take 10 years or more.

The benefits of legalization include boosting the GDP through more on-the-books labor, increased tax revenues, and making sure employers are following hiring and employment laws. Legalization also strengthens communities across the country. When immigrants have the right to live and work in the United States they are less fearful of being deported and are more active in civic life. U.S. citizenship enhances these benefits and provides an additional and meaningful bonus: As full members of the United States, naturalized immigrants have the right to vote.

A pathway to legal status that stops short of the final stage of access to naturalization would be misguided. It also is unnecessary under a comprehensive approach that would provide an integrated system of enforcement and access, reducing the number of unauthorized workers while reducing the number that are able to come surreptitiously.

Thus, while bipartisan agreement may be emerging, what comprehensive reform looks like to each party will no doubt require compromise. Let’s hope the forthcoming debates are open and constructive and that they move immigration policy reform in sensible, pragmatic, and beneficial ways to open up legal status and ultimately citizenship to immigrants.

Authors

Audrey Singer

Publication: The Avenue, The New Republic

Image Source: © Sara Stathas / Reuters

On Election Day, A New American Mainstream

William H. Frey — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Tuesday’s election might someday be seen as a historic turning point in American politics: the last time a major party candidate could hope to win the presidency with a campaign aimed directly at the nation’s “mainstream” white population.

If that was Mitt Romney’s strategy, he succeeded wildly, gaining a nearly unprecedented Republican vote advantage over Democrats among whites, 59 percent to 39 percent.

In the end though, he lost largely by ignoring the rising clout of the country’s minority population, including blacks, Asian Americans and especially Hispanics.

The failure to reach out more to these groups went a long way toward costing him the presidency, leading to losses in rapidly growing swing states like Nevada, Colorado, Virginia, Florida, and almost North Carolina—states that that once stood squarely within the GOP’s Sun Belt wheelhouse. In each of these states, through enthusiastic turnout or stronger support, Hispanics made bigger contributions to Obama’s election than in 2008.

Romney’s blind spot was Obama’s strength. He continued his 2008 strategy of expanding the Democratic base in growing regions, including the Southeast and Mountain West, and among select demographic groups—including young people, college graduates and single women—after two elections of relative stagnation.

Yet, the part of this coalition that will bring its longest run benefit to the Democrats is the strong appeal to minorities, which Obama carried by a margin of roughly 80 percent in the past two elections.

That minorities accounted for a historic high (28 percent) of voters in Tuesday’s elections had much to do with his popular vote advantage. Minority representation will continue as millennials, whose eligible voters are 39 percent minority, grow older. More pronounced will be the effect of U.S.-born children, 46 percent minority (including 23 percent Hispanics), become voting age citizens.

Yet, as much as these trends hold future advantages, Democrats may also be developing their own blind spot in failing to cultivate greater support among whites, including those who older, married, and without college educations. The mere 39 percent support Obama received from whites on Tuesday was the lowest for a Democrat since 1992, when third party candidate Ross Perot drew votes away from both Bill Clinton and Republican George H. W. Bush; and the 20 point marginal loss to Republicans was the biggest since 1984 when Walter Mondale lost to Ronald Reagan.

Some of this widening white deficit can be attributed to extremely poor showings in states that are well outside Democratic reach, such as Mississippi and Alabama with Republican margins of 79 and 69 points respectively. Still, most states in regions where comparisons could be made showed worse Democratic support among whites on Tuesday than in the previous election. Democrats did worse among white demographic groups, including white millennials who switched from Democratic support in 2008 to GOP support (though overall millennials still favored Obama).

Of course, whites matter and, in fact, made a difference in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin where more modest Republican margins in the 5-17 percent range allowed strong black minority turnout to win those states for Obama. These are areas with a union tradition among working class whites, and where Romney’s personal appeal was not particularly strong. They are also relatively “white” states. So any reduction in Republican support will have a big impact and allow enthusiastic minority support for Democrats to triumph.

Similarly, reduced white margins will put in play previously safe Republican states in the Sun Belt. This was the case in 2008 when North Carolina landed in the Democratic column. Yet this time its increased white Republican margin put the Tar Heel State out of reach. Virginia, a state with a substantial northern born white population, kept its Republican margins lean this time, making it a continued Democratic player.

More fast-growing states in the Southeast and Mountain West still lie in the province of Republicans (think Texas, Georgia, and Arizona), but their changing demography, coupled with greater Democratic appeal to whites, will gradually change this (witness Florida, Nevada and Colorado). Until those shifts occur, the mainstays of Democratic support will be mostly slow growing states in the industrial Midwest, New England and the urban coasts—with many of them largely white.

While it is true that demography is on the Democrats side long term, they cannot count on minorities alone to drive their train to victory in the next presidential cycle or two.

It’s possible they dodged a bullet this time because of a Republican strategy which almost ignored minority interests. Because the most racially diverse part of the population is not yet old enough to vote and because voter participation is still highest among mostly white, older people (persons over age 45 cast 54 percent of Tuesday’s votes), Democrats will have to cater more to whites. On the other side of the aisle, Republicans will have to open their doors to Hispanics and other minorities as they become part of the new American “mainstream.”

Authors

William H. Frey

The Effects of Racial Preferences in Higher Education on Student Outcomes

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 08:45:00 -0400

Event Information

September 21, 2012
8:45 AM - 1:45 PM EDT

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

Next month, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Fisher v. University of Texas, the first case the Court has taken up in a decade on the use of race in higher education admissions. The case has generated ninety-two amicus briefs, one of the highest totals for any Supreme Court case in history. The Court is expected to issue a ruling in the high-stakes case that restricts racial preferences more sharply than its 2003 rulings in Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger. As opposed to 2003, many of the arguments in the current affirmative action debate focus not on the competition between races for spots at an elite school, but on whether racial preferences actually benefit their recipients.

On September 21, the Governance Studies program at Brookings hosted a half-day conference examining new research on the actual effects of racial preferences upon students. Do racial preferences help more blacks and Hispanics become scientists and engineers, or do they push students away from STEM majors? Do they tend to increase or decrease minority graduation rates? How do they affect student learning? Did California’s ban on racial preferences in the 1990s change enrollments by black and Hispanic students or affect their grades and graduation rates?

After each panel, participants took audience questions.

Video

Event Materials

Immigration Reform and the Supreme Court

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 12:30:00 -0400

Event Information

June 27, 2012
12:30 PM - 1:00 PM EDT

Online Only
The Brookings Institution

Washington, DC

The Supreme Court’s recent decision to strike down parts of Arizona’s immigration law while upholding its most controversial provision opens the way for further legal scrutiny, since the ruling failed to address the issue of the racial profiling of Latinos. As both presidential candidates seek to appeal to Hispanic voters, the broader national debate over immigration has quickly become an important election issue.

How will the Court’s decision affect the Hispanic vote in the November election? What kind of additional legal challenges to the immigration law can we expect? On June 27, Brookings expert Audrey Singer took your questions and comments in a live web chat moderated by Vivyan Tran of POITICO.

12:29 Audrey Singer: Welcome everyone, let's get started.

12:32 Audrey Singer: In the last two weeks there have been big changes on the immigration policy landscape: the Obama Administration changed policy to allow undocumented children of immigrants the right to stay in the US temporarily if they meet certain conditions and the Supreme Court ruled on an Arizona state law that is designed to control unauthorized immigrants. We’ll discuss both.

12:32 Comment From Alexandra, MA: How much of the Obama administration's new policy for young immigrants was a political ploy, and how much of it can we consider an actual step forward in immigration policy?

12:34 Audrey Singer: Obama supported the DREAM Act, a similar type of law and it was blocked by Congress. This is a temporary measure that is a "half DREAM" and the timing is not coincidental.

12:35 Audrey Singer: So, in some ways, this is a measure that offers some relief but is not sustainable over time. However, it constitutes a step in the right direction according to most supporters of the DREAM Act.

12:35 Comment From Anonymous: Can we expect the "show your papers" provision to be challenged again once it has gone into effect? Do you think it will be eventually struck down on the grounds that it constitutes racial profiling?

12:38 Audrey Singer: The Section of AZ law that remains is the so-called show-me-your-papers provision. The Supreme Court has left the door open for further suits regarding racial profiling. One of the issues is that law enforcement are REQUIRED to check the legal status of those they suspect to be in the US illegally, not EVERYONE they stop. This may be tricky to enforce and will be closely watched by many, including AZ law enforcement officials.

12:38 Comment From Marie: Does the Supreme Court's decision open the door for states to create their own immigration policies with little federal oversight?

12:39 Audrey Singer: Other states, such as UT, AL, IN, GA, and SC are probably watching the AZ case most closely because they have similar laws to both the provisions the SC struck down and upheld. So stay tuned on those states especially.

12:40 Comment From Darryl: What effect can we expect the Supreme Court's decision to have on the quality of life of illegal immigrants already living in the country (in Arizona and elsewhere)?

12:41 Audrey Singer: The law, when it was passed in April 2010, had a large effect on social and economic life in AZ. Businesses suffered initially, and the large immigrant community felt targeted and many went into the shadows or left the state.

12:43 Audrey Singer: This ruling deepens the fear and especially households with members with mixed legal status are in a quandary. States nearby may feel the impact if immigrants decide to move out of the state. Again, some of this has already happened, but this is a further source of anxiety.

12:44 Comment From Guest, TX: How would the progression of immigration reform differ under Romney than in a second term of the Obama administration?

12:46 Audrey Singer: Romney went from holding the hardest line during the Republican primary season, one-uping his competitors on strictness to a more open position on very specific aspects of immigration policy.

12:48 Audrey Singer: In his speech last Thursday to NALEO, he laid out a plan that touched on targeted components of change: notably he said he would reallocate green cards so that immediate family members would be exempt from caps. He would need Congress to do this and that has been the biggest stumbling block for Obama and for his predecessor, George W. Bush.

12:49 Audrey Singer: On legalization, Romney has said he would legalize those willing to serve in the military but nothing specific on unauthorized immigrant children. That is the population Obama targeted with administrative relief.

12:50 Audrey Singer: Notably, Romney mentioned nothing specific about border security and enforcement, something he has spoken strongly about before.

12:52 Audrey Singer: Obama, for his part made attempts to reform immigration law comprehensively (enforcement, admissions, legalization, etc) but lacked support from the Republican party. He has consistently said it is impossible to move ahead without this support.

12:53 Audrey Singer: In my opinion, leadership on this issue is lacking in both parties and we may still have a very long road ahead on reform.

12:53 Comment From Elizabeth, FL: We seem more interested today in retaining high-skilled immigrants than we used to be. What changed? Is it only because the economy is struggling?

12:55 Audrey Singer: This is an interesting point where there seems to be growing consensus from both parties and other constituents. It may be easier in fact to move ahead with piecemeal reform such as opening up pathways to permanent residence for high-skilled immigrants or a more permanent policy for the Dreamers.

12:57 Comment From Guest: Will the 'show your papers' provision that remained following the Arizona v. United States decision intersect with President Obama’s recent initiative to stop deporting undocumented minors?

12:58 Audrey Singer: DHS issued a statement saying this group is not a high priority and they will focus on removing criminals.

1:00 Audrey Singer: Thanks for your questions. The next 5 months will be interesting to watch as the candidates refine their positions on immigration policy, and the public responds.

More Than Just "Administrative Relief" for the Immigration Dreamers

Audrey Singer — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 09:06:00 -0400

Last week, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced big news: Effective immediately, eligible undocumented youth are granted deferred action from deportation (a form of administrative relief).

This important and sensible step by the Obama administration provides immigrants under the age of 30 who have been in the United States for at least five years and are currently enrolled or have graduated from high school or have been honorably discharged from the U.S. military and do not have a felony or misdemeanor the right to live and work in the United States. This change in policy is similar to the proposed Dream Act that would have offered legal status and a path to citizenship for the same population that was blocked by Congress in 2010.

With no hope at the end of the term for congressional action on immigration reform, this action is being lauded by immigrant advocates and supporters. For the most part, these youth were brought to the United States as young children by their parents and have grown up and been educated in U.S. communities. By their own accounts, they feel very American, and many have few ties to their country of birth.

Their joy and relief spilled into the streets, including in front of the White House, where President Obama made a speech announcing the change in policy.

For their part, the Department of Homeland Security, which under this administration has had the greatest number of deportations ever on record, will be better able to concentrate resources on high priority removals.

This is a temporary fix to a more permanent problem, although deferrals can be renewed after two years. By then perhaps Congress can get a bill through.

Both parties have been thinking about this kind of reform in various forms. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, bandied about as Republican vice presidential candidate, had been floating something similar to this administrative action in recent weeks and has cautiously signaled support for the policy change but also has said that it does not go far enough.

It would be almost tragicomic if he convinced Republican candidate Mitt Romney to take it one step further.

Ultimately, the United States will want to bring this group in permanently. As the U.S. labor force begins to shrink in just a few short years, most future growth will come from immigrants and their children, including these children. They will now be pursuing education and jobs that will benefit them and our economy with some hope of a more permanent pathway.

We have already invested in schooling these folks, let’s give them permanent relief in the form of U.S. citizenship and get a permanent return on our investment.

Authors

Audrey Singer

Publication: The Avenue, The New Republic