Leveling the Playing Field examines the admissions policies of contemporary American colleges and universities in light of the assumption that enhancing the educational opportunities of lower-income and minority students would make American society more just. It asks how current admissions policies affect the prospects of such students, and it evaluates alternative approaches. The book treats a variety of topics relevant to answering these questions. What does it mean to reward people according to merit? Is the American system of higher education a meritocracy, and should it be? How do the missions of contemporary institutions of higher education bear on admissions? What are the implications of the Supreme Court's landmark affirmative action decisions of 2003? What is the proper role and significance of standardized tests like the SAT? How does 'lower' education prepare students, or fail to, for higher education? In answering these questions, the book examines legacy preference, early admissions policies, financial aid, the test-prep industry, college counseling, and athletics, evaluating their effects on the distribution of higher education in the United States, not only for lower-income and minority students but for college-bound students in general.

Includes information on Supreme Court cases: Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, Gratz v. Bollinger, and Grutter v. Bollinger.

Despite the tepid reception of Regents of the University of California v. Bakke in 1978, the Supreme Court has thrice affirmed its holding: universities can use race as an admissions factor to achieve the goal of a diverse student body. This book examines the process of rhetorical invention followed by Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr., his colleagues, and other interlocutors as they sifted through arguments surrounding affirmative action policies to settle on diversity as affirmative action’s best constitutional justification. Here M. Kelly Carr explores the goals, constraints, and argumentative tools of the various parties as they utilized the linguistic resources available to them, including arguments about race, merit, and the role of the public university in civic life. Using public address texts, legal briefs, memoranda, and draft opinions, Carr looks at how public arguments informed the amicus briefs, chambers memos, and legal principles before concluding that Powell’s pragmatic decision making fused the principle of individualism with an appreciation of multiculturalism to accommodate his colleagues’ differing opinions. She argues that Bakke is thus a legal and rhetorical milestone that helped to shift the justificatory grounds of race-conscious policy away from a recognition of historical discrimination and its call for reparative equality, and toward an appreciation of racial diversity.

The University and the People chronicles the influence of Populism—a powerful agrarian movement—on public higher education in the late nineteenth century. Revisiting this pivotal era in the history of the American state university, Scott Gelber demonstrates that Populists expressed a surprising degree of enthusiasm for institutions of higher learning. More fundamentally, he argues that the mission of the state university, as we understand it today, evolved from a fractious but productive relationship between public demands and academic authority. Populists attacked a variety of elites—professionals, executives, scholars—and seemed to confirm academia’s fear of anti-intellectual public oversight. The movement’s vision of the state university highlighted deep tensions in American attitudes toward meritocracy and expertise. Yet Populists also promoted state-supported higher education, with the aims of educating the sons (and sometimes daughters) of ordinary citizens, blurring status distinctions, and promoting civic engagement. Accessibility, utilitarianism, and public service were the bywords of Populist journalists, legislators, trustees, and sympathetic professors. These “academic populists” encouraged state universities to reckon with egalitarian perspectives on admissions, financial aid, curricula, and research. And despite their critiques of college “ivory towers,” Populists supported the humanities and social sciences, tolerated a degree of ideological dissent, and lobbied for record-breaking appropriations for state institutions.

Looking at the roots of contemporary political theory, this three-volume set examines the global landscape of all the key theories and the theorists behind them, and provides concise, to-the-point definitions of key concepts, ideas, schools and figures.

Steven M. Cahn belongs to that exclusive class of professors who have not only contributed influentially to the leading debates of their discipline but have also written insightfully about the academic vocation itself. This volume comprises thirteen essays, authored by Cahn's colleagues and former students, presented in his honor on the occasion of his twenty-fifth year as professor of philosophy at the City University of New York Graduate Center. The essays focus on topics that have been central to Cahn's philosophical work, such as the teaching of philosophy, the responsibilities of philosophy professors, the nature of happiness, and the concept of the good life. CONTRIBUTORS: Norman Bowie, Steven M. Cahn, Randall Curren, Maureen Eckert, Alan Goldman, Tziporah Kasachkoff, Peter Markie, John O'Connor, David Rosenthal, David Shatz, George Sher, Robert Simon, Douglas Stalker, Robert B. Talisse, Christine Vitrano

Volume XXI/1 of History of Universities contains the customary mix of learned articles, book reviews, conference reports, and bibliographical information, which makes this publication such an indispensable tool for the historian of higher education. Its contributions range widely geographically, chronologically, and in subject-matter. The volume is, as always, a lively combination of original research and invaluable reference material.