After a supreme court ruling in June, colleges can no longer use race, or ask about race when considering students for admission.
Of course, Nevada hasn’t traditionally been known as a state that values higher education. As of June, the state had the 6th fewest number of residents with a college degree. Mississippi and four other southern states were lower.
For decades, people could make good livings working in casinos on the Strip. But costs have outpaced wages. And after the economic devastation of the Great Recession, many saw education as a way to raise their standard of living.
At the same time, UNLV and the College of Southern Nevada have some of the highest percentages of minority students in the country. UNLV’s website says 69 percent of its students are minorities and CSN is 67 percent.
That compares to much less nationwide. Research.com says 55 percent of those enrolled in college nationally are white.
And the relatively low cost of higher education in Nevada means many students are the first in their families to attend college.
But will the Supreme Court ruling change that? And as college enrollment nationwide has been dropping, some say that Supreme Court ruling could benefit enrollment in Nevada.
CAN THE RULING BENEFIT NEVADA SCHOOLS?
Education policy professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Steven Nelson, disagrees with the ruling; but contends that Nevada schools could still use it to their advantage.
"Nevada is in an interesting position," said Nelson. "We have two R1 universities that are doing great work. I think this decision gives us an opportunity to leverage that and say there are great programs here in Southern Nevada, in Northern Nevada, that you can actually pursue. And in particular, if you're going for a general business degree, a nursing degree, a teaching degree, you really don't need to go to an elite school. We're calling those schools the most desirable schools and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a teaching degree that you can get at UNLV. And even if you're thinking about graduate school, I caution people that it is more important who you're working with in graduate school rather than the name of the school itself."
HOW BENEFICIAL ARE DIVERSITY FOCUSED PROGRAMS?
Affirmative action in college admissions was overturned by a conservative majority vote, and when U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas voted against affirmative action, many raised questions about the potential hypocrisy in his philosophy given that he attended Yale Law School, an ivy league school, in the early 1970's. As one of 12 black students to attend the college at the time, it is likely Justice Thomas benefited from affirmative action.
Lawrence Weekly, chief diversity officer for the College of Southern Nevada, disagrees with the ruling and praises the benefits of diversity focused initiatives; specifically because Weekly attended a historically black university himself.
"I'm a native Nevadan," said Weekly. "When I graduated from Western High School, with a very low grade point average, there was no way I could have been considered for Yale or Harvard or any of those institutions. CSN however, was right there. And that's the institution that accepted, molded, and prepared me. It's what launched me to be able to go to a four year institution, an HBCU [Historically Black College or University] , which clearly prepared me for life. And so, I look at our HBCU's today, and I'm hoping that all of our [university and college] presidents are getting together and they're pouncing on this, they're jumping on top of it. [Justice Thomas] has been quoted as the quiet justice and now he has so many things to say. If he was bothered by being accepted into Yale because of affirmative action, he could have declined his acceptance and went somewhere else. But here is someone who has totally taken advantage of the system and now grandstanding and pretty much throwing it in the faces of our community, and that's why he doesn't have the type of respect that he thinks he deserves in our community."
WHAT IS THE POSSIBLE LONGTERM IMPACT FOR A RULING LIKE THIS?
Whenever a Supreme Court ruling is made it can raise questions as to what precedent it sets for the future. What new policies or laws will be influenced by it? What type of cultural impact will it have?
The American Civil Liberties Union has been outspoken on their disapproval of the ruling, and last year, along with two other states, they urged the Supreme Court to consider the importance of race in college admissions. The ACLU of Nevada has been outspoken against the ruling as well, and executive director Athar Haseebullah, spoke about the potential implications of the ruling.
"I think this decision has underlying impacts in other areas," said Haseebullah. "The decision was limited specifically to higher education and the use of race based considerations, that doesn't mean there may not be spillover in the future, to employment and potentially other areas. I think one of the things that's been ignored as a whole, and we'll see where where we land across the country on this, is with the concept of legacy admissions; which are roughly six times more likely to lead to an admission, at least according to recent data. The other thing that I'm anticipating is there's going to be a lot more legal challenges because the court said you can't utilize race as a harder, maybe even somewhat of a soft factor in admissions, but you're still free to discuss it within your application. So what does that look like? It probably looks like more litigation to come."
Guests: Steven Nelson, associate professor of education policy and leadership, UNLV; Lawrence Weekly, Chief Diversity Officer, CSN; Athar Haseebullah, Executive Director, American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada
