There needs to be more, not fewer opportunities to assist students of color on campuses, according to a new report from The Education Trust.
Jessie Hernández-Reyes
The report, Creating Positive College Campus Racial Climates for Students of Color, highlights the perspectives of students of color with regard to their experiences on campus and campus racial climates, and also provide suggestions on measuring and improving these climates.
Campus racial climate is defined in the report as the “current attitudes, behaviors, and practices of faculty and students at a higher education institution toward students based on their race/ethnicity.”
"There's more than 25 years of research by academic scholars on the experiences of students of color,” said Jessie Hernández-Reyes, lead author and senior policy analyst for higher education at EdTrust. “We've seen time and time again through that research that the experiences that these students have is different from their white peers, specifically because of how staff, faculty, and peers have different attitudes, behaviors, and practices towards students of color due to their perceived or actual race or ethnicity."
In light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision this year to ban race-conscious admissions and “the attacks that we're seeing subsequently on DEI in the states,” it’s crucial to assess the campus racial climate today, said Hernández-Reyes.
“In the wake of the Supreme Court’s limitation on the use of affirmative action, some colleges are doing away with their efforts to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) on campus; but we argue that there needs to be even greater efforts on college campuses to support the belonging and success of students of color, not fewer,” the report stated.
For the report, EdTrust researchers interviewed 32 Black, Latino, and Asian American students enrolled at predominantly White institutions (PWIs) in 15 U.S. states, gauging their thoughts on what their respective campuses could be doing better.
