While economic interests rely on increased enrollment in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education, the thrust toward minorities pursuing technical degrees—particularly postgraduate degrees—has become an even larger priority. However, the voter-bans on affirmative action may prevent the rise of a diverse STEM field, according to a recent study.
After the U.S. Supreme Court case Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, researchers published an influx of data, pointing to the declining enrollment number of minorities at graduate schools where affirmative action is banned. Amid such data, the number of minority students present in postgraduate education was even lower at schools with bans. The study, only focusing on subjects including natural sciences, engineering and social sciences, found a 2 percent decrease in minority enrollment within each subject.
The study purposely neglected to incorporate international students, as that analysis differed for domestic students. In addition, students who are Asian American and Pacific Islanders were also excluded, as they don’t broadly define the notion of an underrepresented student of color, according to the study.
Liliana M. Garces, assistant professor of Higher Education at George Washington University, took a quantitative analysis in the study of states: Arizona, California, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Washington, Florida, New Hampshire. In such states where administration is restricted from using the consideration of race in higher education admissions, African-Americans and Latinos made up less than 5 percent of the population in scientific fields. Aggregating most of her data from the Council of Graduate and the Graduate Record Examinations, Garces tracked the postgraduate enrollment levels before and after affirmative action bans.
Garces explained, “In the field of engineering for example, there is an overall decline of about 26 percent. For this study, the quantitative analysis looks at the impact across the states within each of these fields and it’s looking at averages across institutions.”
Although Garces found glaring gaps in minority enrollment for STEM fields, she was unable to make further conclusions of the admissions process in voter-ban states, as that information is oftentimes not easily measured. Without such data, it poses complexities on determining the flaws in admission practices.
“There could be a strong factor that institutions have responded differently to affirmative action bans. One of the factors that the quantitative analysis can’t explain is determining how institutions change their policies,” said Garces.
