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Abstract
Anti-affirmative action legal discourse about U.S. higher education within selective institutions race-conscious admissions encompasses co-opted civil rights aims for racial equity in education that maintains white supremacy. Racially progressive efforts to include historically racially minoritized applicants of color have been met with unfounded assertions of reverse discrimination by White applicants and most recently, Asian Americans. In this essay, I use a critical race analysis to illuminate how four racialized themes, color-evasive rhetoric, the normalcy of white privilege, diversity rhetoric, and the myth of meritocracy, operate in legal discourse. I conclude by offering radical affirmative action as a way to refute the themes and influence research on legal discourse about race-conscious admissions.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 I define racial equity in education as treatment and access to societal resources in a non-hierarchical format with legal advocacy and policy formation supportive of efforts to ensure racially minoritized people flourish in all educational settings.
2 Critical DisCrits (Annamma et al., Citation2017) advocate for the use of color-evasive instead of colorblind as a more accurate reflection of conscious avoidance choices instead of using physical limitations in a negative connotation.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
LaWanda W. M. Ward
LaWanda Ward, JD, PhD, is an assistant professor of higher education and research associate in the Center for the Study of Higher Education at the Pennsylvania State University. Her research agenda centers on critically analyzing legal issues in higher education including race-conscious admissions, free speech, and tenure denial lawsuits involving of faculty of color.