Affirmative Action and Racial Equity is an important resource for higher education scholars and administrators to understand the nuances of the affirmative action legal debate and to identify the challenges and potential strategies toward racial equity and inclusion moving forward.

Foreword by Gary Orfield

Part 1: Background and Evidence Submitted

Chapter 1: The Legal Context and Social Science Evidence in Fisher v. University of Texas

Liliana M. Garces

Chapter 2: Leadership, Citizenship, and Civic Capacity: The Imperative of Racial Diversity for Realizing Higher Education's Public Mission

Susan Sturm and Olatunde C. A. Johnson

Chapter 3: The Promise of Diversity in Remedying the Harms of Identity-Related Threats and Racial Isolation

Allison S. Elgart, Victoria C. Plaut, Nicole Arlette Hirsch, and Eva Jefferson Paterson

Chapter 4: Tejas Es Diferente: UT Austin's Admissions Program in Light of Its Exclusionary History

Tomiko Brown-Nagin, Lani Guinier, and Gerald Torres

Chapter 5: Access and Diversity at the University of California in the Post-Affirmative Action Era

Michal Kurlaender, Elizabeth Friedmann, and Tongshan Chang

Part 2: Lessons and Strategies Moving Forward

Chapter 6: The Mismatch Myth in U.S. Higher Education: A Synthesis of Empirical Evidence at the Law School and Undergraduate Levels

William C. Kidder and Richard O. Lempert

Chapter 7: Amplifying Asian American Presence: Contending with Dominant Racial Narratives in Fisher

Mitchell James Chang

Chapter 8: From Access to Outcomes: Considering the Texas Top Ten Percent Plan and Its Relationship to Student Persistence

Catherine L. Horn and Stella M. Flores

Chapter 9: Walking the Diversity Rationale Talk: A Call to Institutions

María C. Ledesma

Chapter 10: Reflections on the Diversity (Rationale) Literature: Examining the Potential and Need for Critical Diversity Research Praxis

Uma M. Jayakumar and Annie S. Adamian, with Mitchell James Chang

Afterword: Working Collectively Toward Racial Equity in Higher Education Policy

Uma M. Jayakumar and Liliana M. Garces

Uma M. Jayakumar is Associate Professor of Organization and Leadership at the University of San Francisco and Faculty Associate at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan.

Liliana M. Garces is Assistant Professor of Higher Education and Research Associate in the Center for the Study of Higher Education at the Pennsylvania State University.