The Supreme Court and What’s Next w. AACRAO Executive Director Melanie Gottlieb

Tashana, Portia, and Ingrid pause their summer book club series to sit down with AACRAO Executive Director Melanie Gottlieb to walk through the recent Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College and its impact on race-conscious admissions. Melanie walks through a summary of the decision’s impact and what is still unclear; its likely impact on the holistic review process; and how AACRAO is moving forward with supporting the community. 

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Hi Acro Community. Welcome to another episode of HD. By now, I'm sure you are aware of the Supreme Court ruling released in June that has had a huge impact on race conscious admissions and higher education. On June 29th, Acro executive Director Melanie Gottlieb released a statement on the ruling that included a Cro's position and affirmed the association's commitment to providing resources and support for the profession as everyone figures out how to move forward. Given the significance of this decision, Tashana Porsche and I decided to pause our summer book club and reach out to Melanie to discuss this decision and what comes next. You will hear in this conversation that Melanie and all of Acro are committed to supporting members and being in conversation with you all as we navigate what we know and don't know right now about what the ruling means. Ok, let's get started. Hi, Acro Community. Welcome to another episode of her. I am Ingrid Nuttle. I'm Tashawna Curtis and I'm Porsha Lamar. And today we have the fabulous good fortune of having a conversation with Melanie Gottlieb, Executive Director of Acro Melanie. We scheduled this um pretty quick to try to dig in more with you on the recent Supreme Court decision um affecting affirmative action in higher education. So, we're going to ask you a bunch of questions about that before we get started. One of the things we like to make sure we cover in this podcast with the people we talk to is just a little bit about themselves and their identity. So, in addition to the title I shared of your role at Acro, what else would you like to share about yourself with Acro community? Absolutely. So, um I am a mother, I am a uh I have uh I'm a first gen college student. I always feel quite blessed to have the career that I have because I was a person who grew up with parents who worked um who were not educated and that sort of drive to be educated has changed my life and, and that actually informs everything that I do. It's at the core of why I work with Acro is that I believe in the power of education, I believe in the, its ability to change the direction of one's life. And I believe that everyone should have equal access to it. So that's a big part of why I'm here. Seems like a pretty fitting segue into the topic that we're here to talk about today. Just to do a little level setting for everyone. Can you briefly describe the recent Supreme Court decision and its impact on the holistic review process. What is different? Absolutely. Um I'm gonna start and preface it by saying that we are still in a very deep analytic process of um understanding what's in the decision. Um So I'll preface it by saying that um we are in the early stages of understanding our next steps. And so I may not have all of the insights that I hope to have. Uh by the time we get through that process, the decision was unusual in some ways in that it was 200 pages long. And that is quite unusual, we were not expecting uh the decision to be quite that long. So it means there's a lot to go through and a lot to understand. Um the decision at its core has instructed us that we are not allowed to consider race in any form when we make the admissions decision. I mean, that's the core of the decision. A lot of the media coverage around it and a lot of the conversations around it are referring to it as a, a decision on affirmative action and that's actually not true. Um because affirmative action has been gone already for, for 30 plus years. Um Affirmative action is not what colleges and universities have been doing um when they have used uh race as a consideration. Um So that the short of it is we're no longer allowed to consider race. Um The long of it is much more complicated than that there are, we're, we're trying to determine um exactly what that means, how, what can be considered and um also what the implications are for other programs on our campuses that are tied to race. Um And there are still quite a lot of questions around that right now, then just to clarify that is for higher education, but it does not extend that to military schools or military. Yeah. So super interesting. And one of the several places where the decision actually is not clear at all and creates some serious questions that are absolutely going to be litigated further. Um And that is that they said in post-secondary education, we are not allowed to consider race, but they exempted military academies from that consideration because they said, and I, I don't have the, the, the decision in front of me, but also I'll paraphrase something to the effect of uh military academies have some sort of a compelling interest in diversity um for creating a strong military, which is an interesting comment. They, they were going to reserve that decision on military academies or discussion on military academies for another time. It's almost as though they are either challenging the military academies to come up with a mechanism around that compelling interest or challenging others to litigate it. Um But yeah, it is a very, very interesting and an odd thing. Um I'll say one of the other interesting oddities is around. Um, there was some discussion around the use of race or the mention of race in an admissions essay. And as you, you know, the admissions essay, especially in a competitive admissions process is often an important piece of an evaluation. Um And Justice Roberts did recognize that in an essay, an individual can't really separate the circumstances of their lived experience from this uh from, from the, their, their development and from their uh experiences. So it was ok for them to mention it. But in the same breath, he was quite clear that said that institutions can in no way consider that as a proxy for the the as you know, the question and use that as a data point around race. Again, part of the reason why uh we still have a lot more thinking to do before we can really issue guidance to members is uh so that um we can really try to help them navigate that legal complexity. And we're still working with our attorney. There was a webinar today um with uh the attorney who helped us uh art Coleman where he laid out some of th those um examples and some of the issues and, and I will be spending the next two days actually deep dive with him on these topics. So we will be sharing more, but it's a complicated decision. Um But I think ultimately, what it does is changes the design parameters around which we can design our admission processes in a holistic admissions fashion. So I have a question. Um And I know I don't have an admissions background. I'm a registrar background, but when students like minority students are looking for funding, how is that gonna impact students receiving like minority scholarships and things like that? So that's a question. Um We're working with our colleagues at uh NASA the Financial Aid Organization uh to help them understand the implications of that. Um And I think that that because it's not incredibly clear in the decision, I think it is going to vary a little bit by state. We've seen some states who have been uh very strong already in sending letters to their institutions on the day of the decision saying you need to eliminate everything that takes race into consideration. Um Or else is the implication. Um and it, what we have said up to this point is that it's wise for institutions to be really clear uh about what options they have that are designated through race in particular scholarships and financial aid. There are some mechanisms by which a scholarship that is say from a, a donor um that is specifically targeted toward a person of color or toward any particular group that there is some mechanism around pooling funds and designating funding. At a later time. It's pretty complicated and the the financial aid folks are really diving into that very closely. There are mechanisms to, to try to award aid in a, a more uh I, in a fashion that doesn't actually take their, their status into consideration, but still can privilege them in some way. I really don't. It's not my area. So, and, and it's so new and they're still working out. Like, what could that look like? Do you, I'm sorry. Do you think that will have an effect on minority enrollment? It could, uh, a couple of points around that. Um, we've seen in, uh, both California and Michigan which have banned the use of race in admissions already. Um We have seen drops in minority enrollment. They, I I would say Michigan has a very long history of those institutions working very closely to try to work within that race consideration ban and the result they've had progress and they have solid processes, but they absolutely saw a decline in enrollment. I think there's another thing that could impact enrollment that will be hard as we examine the data in the coming years. It will be hard to disentangle and that's the general mental social, personal discouragement. Um I, I have to, you know, and, and as a white woman, I'm gonna say like I, I did not experience this myself, but I can imagine that the mental and emotional weight of this conversation on our young students of color has to be enormous. And I would imagine that it would propel them to either be if they're already on the bubble, whether or not they're considering it, they may be dis incentivized to continue education, they may make a different choice um because they were already on the edge of making a choice, especially people of lower income brackets. You know, this is a, it's a risky endeavor to take on the debt and take that leap of go of education. And so it could discourage people from even, even applying. And that would be problematic um in, in lots of ways, it would be detrimental to our diversity goals. It would be detrimental to the classroom experiences of all students and some of the things that, and, and I'm still working to hone this discussion. I'm just not quite fully there yet. But I think, I think that the people who are anti diversity aren't really understanding a number of things that they ought to be looking at from a very reality standpoint and are in some arguments that I think they would agree with if they really thought it through. And that's, you know, if you look at the makeup of our country, our country is incredibly diverse and growing. The data says it's growing more and more diverse every day. And if you are disincentivizing people from taking that step into education, you're creating a barrier for the entire country, for the workforce and for the social and economic health of the nation, it feels so short sighted and thoughtless and that even just doesn't even take into account. Um The, it's the right thing to do kind of thing. We need to provide opportunities and kind of right the pathway. But if you just look at it from a practical sense, it seems ridiculous. Melanie, one of the things you said about your own identity as a white woman, I'm a white woman as well. That strikes me in this conversation when we're thinking about the admissions essays and we've talked about it. This podcast too is as a white person, I would never be inclined to bring my experience as a white person directly into my admissions essay unless I was talking about it in the context of how that has afforded me some form of un an advantage or privilege. And so when we talk about, not either, they're not using race as a decision factor. It, it's just, just striking me in this conversation how, how white people not because of racism, right? Because of white supremacy as like as a, as a thing as a wrapper around so many systems, it is present in the absence of naming it. And so it, it's just striking me now that, that it is present for it with that population, even if you don't name it because they don't name it. If that makes sense. It totally makes sense. I actually, I, I said that because I realized when I introduced myself, I didn't introduce myself as a white woman. And, and I like, and, and it, it absolutely is a, it's a, it's a, a mark of privilege that I don't have to clarify that. I don't necessarily think about that every moment. Like it, it is, it is uh it is part of my learning journey to like continually reflect on that privilege that I, I would not also have mentioned that but my whiteness in my admissions essay, I wouldn't have talked about it. II I talked about first gen kinds of things because that was my formative experience that, you know, I was the, the child of high school parents who did not go to college and were very working class. And, and that's a very much a part of my formative identity. I didn't even at the time reflect on the fact that in addition, I'm white, I may have these other things, but I'm also white, you mentioned you wouldn't have said it. But I, and I don't even remember doing an essay. I'm gonna be honest with you. But I did, I did get a degree. I was admitted into a college, but I was just thinking like most times, well, from my perspective, I didn't, I would omit my race just so I can even get a foot in the door or get the, the look at, you know, just uh let me hide everything that I, that is of me just so you can see me on the same level as everyone else. So that it, it's interesting that you wouldn't think to say it but then here I was trying to omit it just to, even though names and everything and, you know, you can still see it. But we were trying, we were trying to erase it, which is sad too. It's complicated. It's, it's, it's identity, right? And I think yes, in the decision, there was mention that, you know, yes, you, you can't separate your identity. And so when you're talking about your experiences, it's really nearly impossible to separate it. And I think for, for people of color, that's actually one of the, that that's a, a large piece of your identity that you've had to like grapple with um because of white supremacy. So it makes sense that it would be mentioned in if you're trying to be clear about your identity. And I think, I think the upcoming generation of learners are much more stake in the ground around their identity, like in a really wonderful and refreshing way and it's forcing us to have some conversations that uh I think our conversations we, we need to have. So Melanie, you also have experience as a practitioner in enrollment management. Um So if this decision had come through when you were a practitioner, how would it have altered your work? What are people kind of going through right now, do you think? Yeah, I think there's a lot of uncertainty because the decision has come down and, and people are finalizing their applications for the fall, right? We're getting ready to launch the next admission cycle. So there's a, there's a lot of anxiety around aid awarding. And so I'm, I'm appreciative of our NAFTA colleagues who are working through that. There's also a lot of anxiety around just it's, it's uncertainty because the decision, it says you can't use race, you then question every instance where it even is mentioned, right? Um I've had members who have asked me, well, do we need to take, do we need to take race out of the application? You know, which makes an assumption that uh that you can't actually isolate a reader from the demographic data because you, you can, you can absolutely, there are, there are ways to do that. I think the really the, the way that it has impacted people the most right now is just they have this level of uncertainty. They're examining all of their practices and all of their processes and they're balancing them against their institutional um like risk factor. Um some institutions are less risk averse or more risk averse. And I think that that is the context in, within which every institution is gonna make a decision about how they are proceeding. Um Some institutions are gonna say we have no ability to take any risk and so we are gonna swing very far in the opposite direction and we are not gonna look at race at all and any and, and, and it may cause them to react too far on one side. Um, there are other institutions who are kind of fired up and saying, you know, we're gonna align with our mission and we're going to do what's to the letter of the law, but we are going to move forward with the way that we make our decisions. A true holistic admission process actually doesn't necessarily consider race a true holistic admission process is going to craft a set of questions that expose character traits and those character traits are the things that uh an admissions professional are going to be judging within their rubric. And so, um they are absolutely so, so someone who's really a strong holistic admissions practitioner is less worried about the admissions decision, probably more worried about the financial aid pieces um and making sure that they're gonna stay compliant there. But anyone who has, who employs lots of readers, if you've got AAA big admissions pipeline and you've got a whole lot of readers, you're retooling all of your training, you are carefully reviewing all of your materials. You are ensuring that you are to the letter of the law because especially if you're a competitive institution, it's quite possible you're gonna be watched like a hawk-- heavy, right?-- Yeah, it is heavy. Um Melanie, we talk a lot about history on this podcast. It comes up all the time and everything I think we talk, we talk about ends up being sort of recontextualized within history and you have a degree in history according to your um you know, bio. So um what did you, what was your area of specialization? So I did um American studies and history and my specialization. So I went to a, a college that required you write in my undergraduate, required you write a thesis as an undergraduate. And so my thesis was on uh the impact of the G I bill on American higher Education.-- 00,-- wow. Future.-- Talk-- about, talk about something that's a topic related to diversity, equity and inclusion in lots of different ways. We would love to talk to you about that. Um Someday. Well, then perfect question for you is what, what are your thoughts um on this decision within the broader contracts of history of increasing access to higher education for marginalized communities? So does it compare to anything? Is it another inflection point? Like how does this sort of sit in history as you think about it? Yeah. It, it's, it's really interesting because honestly the focus of the lawsuit and the focus of all of this attention are on, you know, the 110 most elite institutions in the country, right? Like that's really what this attention is about. And there's this sense that increasing access for one group decreases access for I I would argue that that's a seriously flawed argument because, you know, higher education is not pie, you know, there's, there are, you know, 4500 or so higher ed institutions in the country. Um And we are the country in the world with the greatest capacity, like we have more seats than we can fill in higher education in quality accredited higher education. And so it is a scarcity argument that I think is seriously off base. And so I don't have a moment in time that I compare it to, but I do think about it as perhaps a symptom of an identity crisis in higher ed in some sense, if you look at the founding of higher education, you know, in the early days of uh of us higher education, it was created for the elite, it was not created for everybody. And so the G I Bill was the big thing that opened up access and, and honestly, it wasn't really philosophically designed to open up access. It was, oh we got all these gis coming back, the women are in their jobs, we need them to do something. So let's put them into higher education. And I mean, it was solving, it was solving a social problem post war. And from that access began to broaden. Um and higher education became the pathway to the American dream, right? It, it became the pathway to economic and social mobility. We're now at this inflection point in higher education where um it's reflective of the social divide, you know, we've got very deep economic social divides. Um And there's a lot of attention on the elite institutions and a lot less attention on all of the broad institutions and access that we already have. And those institutions are struggling with enrollment, they're struggling with remaining relevant, they're struggling with the cost of tuition. So we're spending our time, our energy, our attention on fighting about who gets to go to the top 110 institutions. Instead of focusing on what is a national crisis in higher education. And instead of focusing on how do we ensure that in a knowledge based economy, our institutions, our, our, our, our citizens are educated and can participate equally. And so if you lay that on top of this post pandemic environment, we have this transition of learners who are looking for something different and more relevant as well. And so institutions are trying to figure out what their identity is. And if we could focus there instead of who gets to go to the Ivy, I, I think we'd be better off, we're gonna have to get there. We're gonna have to look at that. Um And so I don't think I see a particular because it's been a while since I've done a deep dive on picked up my higher ed books. But at the same time, uh it, it, it is absolutely an inflection point that I think a lot is gonna be written about in the future because we are e everything about higher ed is changing. And this is, this is just one of the places. So this is a little, a little off topic but because of your history, background and knowledge, do you have a, a thought on, on everyone's shock to know that history that was taught in school is, is quite different from the events that may have actually happened. Um I think anyone who studies history understands that the perspective is entirely about the teller, you know, the person who writes the history is the person who controls the narrative. So, um that is, that is, I think, I mean, not surprising to me, not surprising to anyone who is a student of history, but it is surprising to lots of other people, you know, it's, it's, it's everything is about perspective, right? Um I, I often will tell people this story that when I, so I grew up in Massachusetts, I was born in Plymouth, which is like the world, the land of the pilgrims, right? The Mayflower and everything's ye old this or that and whatever. And like I grew up steeped in that history. Um And my perspective was so deep in it and then I went to college and was blown away as I started studying history, like how centric my knowledge of early American history was like, centered on this stuff that happened in Plymouth when there was this whole other set of things that were happening in other parts of the country that I didn't learn anything about. And so that was like the first awakening that. Oh. Yeah, the study of history is absolutely not only about the teller but it's also about the place where it's being told, you know, and that really, um, informs that. Um, uh, so it's, it's inherently biased. Yeah, I love how you mentioned that story. That's a good story. I like it. Yeah, I hadn't heard like, they're like, oh, what about Jamestown? Like, I don't know, what about Jamestown, you know, 18 year old me and being like, oh, well, even the G I Bill that you mentioned Melanie because like, so the G I Bill did open up access to higher education predominantly for it was very regionally based, largely for white veterans and largely in the North because it was specifically architected by one of the senators, Senator John Rankin to so that it could be it was administered at the state level. So the States in the South where we have where there was a lot of African Americans were, those colleges were underfunded and they couldn't even accept the qualified veterans into their schools. So even in this or in these inflection points of increasing access, we still see, you know, this is one where access where the doors are closing, even in these inflection points where we see the doors open, there's still intention there and there sort of always has been and right and always this pushing back against the like against these historical moments So it is, I just think it's really, I appreciate your comments and I think it is important to recognize what you said, which is like this is gonna be history. This is like, it's right now, there's going to be things written about and how we respond, how acro responds and how our institutions respond and we respond individually is going to be a part of that and it is going to be a part of how people understand what it meant. Um So it's like heartening to, to have some hope there. Like it's heartening to hear you say that you're seeing people sort of embrace the moment and meet the moment too. I think that's, it's an important thing to recognize that as well. Right. Yeah. II, I will say that I am, I am heartened by, I, I do a lot of work with other higher ed associations and they're all meeting the moment. We're all talking about this all the time. Um And we are all strategizing about how we move forward in this space. Um And how we can support our institutions in ways that will help them and not hurt them, you know, and so we have to be, have to be careful and thoughtful about the way forward. Um But uh there are lots of opportunities to provide resources or even just to have conversations um which in some cases is all is all we can do, but it helps people clarify I'm seeing all the organizations clarifying their missions and strengthening their commitment to their, their missions. And I'm seeing institutions who are um committed to diversity, also strengthening that. Um And so it's gonna take those kind of stronger voices to sort of link arms and, and just continue forward and we can do it within the confines of the law. We just have to change the design principles, but we have those tools we can do that. The work will be different. We have to accept that there are gonna be some spaces where maybe we can't do the work in the way that we would like to, but we can quietly offer support um and find ways to help in those spaces as well. So it's um it'll be very interesting over the coming years as we've kind of developed the strategy to move this forward. I'm sad, I've gotten past the angry, I'm frustrated, but I'm not disheartened um because I am en heartened by the strength and the commitments that I'm in the colleagues that I'm talking to. Ok, we have one final question for you Melanie. Um So you released a statement on the decision in which you said AC R will continue to review the decision and its impacts and we will work closely with our institutions and partners in the higher education community to provide resources and guidance for their efforts, to ensure equitable access and outcomes for all learners in ways that are consistent with the law. I know it's really early as we've talked about, but what does it look like to work closely with institutions and provide resources? So, um the first thing that we have been doing over the last couple of weeks has been working with our other higher ed associations and our attorneys to pour through the decision to understand its implications and to kind of work through scenarios like practical scenarios of what things might look like. And so I would imagine that work is probably going to continue for another couple of weeks as we think it all through um with the attorneys. Um at the same time, um we have institutions that we have trained already on holistic admissions processes um through mainly through our consulting engagements. And so I know our consultants are talking with those institutions to do check ins and see how they're, how they're doing, how they're feeling, um whether or not they feel like they need to uh change up anything that they have in their processes. And then the next step for us would be to launch a number of engagements with our members, you know, probably webinars and more community conversations to get feedback and to have questions and then out of all of that to um publish some case studies or some, some guidelines that will be helpful, the guidelines will more likely be, be sure you are not doing XY and Z and here are some great examples of ways that you could proceed. But we have, we're just being very thoughtful and careful before we release that work because we wanna make sure that we're giving people good guidance. I'm gonna ask you one little follow up to that. Um Because I know, so you, you mentioned already um like concerns about risk and I'm wondering like in the work of pursuing equity and inclusion for people, there's risk. And so where, where do you think people can take and should take risks? So interestingly, you said people and, and that's different. Um I, I am in my role, I have to weigh always my personal thoughts, feelings, opinions, acros position on things and um and then our, our risk, you know, our risk profile, like what can we risk and, and we have to, you know, act on the benefit of, you know, the organization in lots of ways. So I think on a personal level, I think people need to make a personal values based decision on how they can be supportive in this space. Um And that looks like lots of that's showing up in lots of different ways. I think institutions have a different calculation that they have to do. Um they have to work with their council, they have to be aware of their location and they have to be aware of their status as an institution. Are they public? Are they private et cetera and then decide what their, how far their environment will allow them to go within the confines of the law because the, the law is not yet clear. It's sort of this ugly thing about the way law is made. It's I find it some, sometimes a little bit frustrating and ugly like the sausage, but some people will say it's the beautiful thing, like people who love the law think this is the beautiful thing. So is that the way law is made is that decisions are put out there and then more cases get litigated. And so there will be more cases. We know that there will, there will likely be legacy admissions cases. Um We know that there have been, the SS fa has already gone out and um tried to find now they've put out a call, they're looking for military students who think that they have been disadvantaged because of their race. And so this will continue to be litigated and refined. Um So, uh the advice for individuals is about your conscience and your values, the advice for institutions is about understanding where you are and who your community is and and being clear about your mission and who you serve. And I think institutions can do a lot to reassure their communities that despite the law that they are committed to equity of opportunity and that they are committed to the value of diversity and that they will work through every legal means to get there. And and, and I think that that's uh I think we're seeing that happening and I think that will be important as we move forward to make sure that our, our learners of color are not dis incentivized to either continue education or to start education in the first place. Melanie Gottlieb, executive director of ERO. Thank you so much. So you had a day and then we gave this to you. I know it's an hour later where you are. So hopefully you can navigate your way through DC traffic to get to where you need to get to II, I don't navigate the traffic. I didn't-- think,-- can you ever navigate the traffic? But, ok, I'm navigating it on the ground. It's all good. It's all good. I very much appreciate all of you. I appreciate the conversation. Um We're all learning every day and, and growing and stretching and I, I will say this is a, this is a stretch one. I'm working on it. Um And, and, but I, I think we have all of our leaders at acro um our board, um our committees, our caucuses and we're all working through it and I am confident that we're gonna move forward. I'm, I'm super excited. I really-- appreciate um the conversation and it's gonna continue-- beyond this now. And I mean, and all that you have done has shown how incredible this for this organization is because you and your staff have given us the opportunity to talk it out, to understand it, to learn and grow and stretch just as you just mentioned, so very appreciative of you, your staff, the board members, everyone and, and to be associated with AC O. So thank you. Thank you for bringing the community together. Thanks for listening to HRD. We would love to hear from you. Please send us thoughts you have on this episode, ideas for future episodes or feedback you have on anything you've heard so far to HD at acro.org. This episode was produced by Doin, thanks doin we'll see you next time.