Abstract
We consider how antiblack legal precedents constrain African American access and success in higher education. We employ critical race theory to assess status and trends for African American college, graduate, and professional students. Our forty-year analysis traces national patterns of African American student enrollment and degree completion at public, four-year institutions. Using the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, we find that higher education remains a site of intense racial struggle for African American students. Across institutions we see various trends: the number of African American students at flagships has declined, more students enroll and complete degrees at black-serving institutions, and historically black colleges and universities are more racially diverse.
- © 2018 Russell Sage Foundation. Allen, Walter R., Channel McLewis, Chantal Jones, and Daniel Harris. 2018. “From Bakke to Fisher: African American Students in U.S. Higher Education over Forty Years.” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 4(6): 41–72. DOI: 10.7758/RSF.2018.4.6.03. Acknowledgments: University of California Libraries. Direct correspondence to: Walter R. Allen at wallen{at}ucla.edu, Moore Hall 3101A-1, 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90095–1521; Channel McLewis at cmclewis{at}ucla.edu; Chantal Jones at chantalj{at}ucla.edu; and Daniel Harris at dph28{at}ucla.edu.
Open Access Policy: RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences is an open access journal. This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.