Education
Colleges Will Be Able to Block Out a Student’s Race on Admissions Applications
Each year, the million or so students applying to college through the Common App are given the option to check a box, disclosing whether they identify as Hispanic, Asian, Black or white, among other choices.
Now, with the U.S. Supreme Court expected to rule soon against race-conscious admissions — and with colleges wanting to follow the law — the Common App has made a pre-emptive move on what is known as the “race box.”
Beginning Aug. 1, colleges will be able to hide the information in those boxes from their own admissions teams, said Jenny Rickard, chief executive of the Common App, in an interview.
The new option will help colleges comply “with whatever legal standard the Supreme Court will set in regards to race in admissions,” Common App said in a statement. A nonprofit, Common App administers a universal application used by more than 1,000 colleges and universities.
The decision, which appears to be aimed at immunizing colleges from litigation, is one of the first concrete examples of how college admissions may be transformed if the Supreme Court bans or restricts race-conscious admissions. The college opt-out could also put more pressure on applicants to signal their racial and ethnic background through other means, primarily in essays or teacher recommendations.
The scope of the court’s decision, expected in late June, is unknown. But the justices showed a keen interest in the use of race boxes during the oral arguments last fall.
Colleges have said they will follow the law, but are wary of future litigation. Groups opposed to affirmative action have said that they may file lawsuits that could test the boundaries of the Supreme Court’s ruling.
The potential case against race boxes is obvious, according to Edward Blum, founder of Students for Fair Admissions, the plaintiffs in the current court cases against Harvard and the University of North Carolina.
“If racial preferences are determined to be illegal, then it must follow that racial classification boxes should not be allowed on college application forms,” he said.
Masking the race boxes on the Common App could give universities a measure of plausible deniability, legal experts said, and perhaps some protection from lawsuits.
Essays are a less likely target for lawsuits. As a practical matter, it would be hard to redact mentions of race from the many thousands of application essays that colleges receive every year, with more than 50,000 applicants at Harvard alone.
But more litigation around the broader issue of diversity, like scholarships for Black students, seems likely. “There is a colossal, well-organized, well-funded attack agenda,” said Art Coleman, managing partner of Education Counsel, a consulting firm working with universities on the Supreme Court cases.
During oral arguments, the Supreme Court justices spent considerable time discussing the race box and the application essay. Some variant of the phrase “checking the box” was used more than 30 times during the five hours of argument before the justices last October.
Patrick Strawbridge, a lawyer for Students for Fair Admissions, sparred with the justices over when it would be appropriate for admissions officers to know the race of an applicant. He suggested that much would depend on the context of the revelation.
“What we object to is a consideration of race and race by itself,” Mr. Strawbridge told the justices.
“Race in a box-checking way, as opposed to race in an experiential statement?” Justice Amy Coney Barrett, one of the conservative majority expected to be sympathetic to the plaintiffs, elaborated.
Mr. Strawbridge said it would be harder to object to a thoughtful essay that invoked the student’s race in the context of a highly personal story.
An essay about overcoming racial discrimination could be permitted, because it “obviously indicates that the applicant has grit, that the applicant has overcome some hardship,” Mr. Strawbridge told the justices. “It tells you something about the character and the experience of the applicant other than their skin color.”
Isiaah Crawford, president of the University of Puget Sound, said he hoped the court would agree with Mr. Strawbridge on that point.
“We certainly do believe that student applicants should have a First Amendment right to be able to speak about their background if they choose to do so,” Dr. Crawford said.
If discussion of a student’s race were fully barred, he said, a white applicant to an Ivy League school might be able to write about being the child of an alumna, while a Black student might not be able to “to talk about his or her background, whose grandparents weren’t let into schools like the Ivy League, and how that has impacted their choices.”
The Common App will continue to collect racial information for its own purposes, like looking at trends in applications among different groups, regardless of how the Supreme Court decides, Ms. Rickard said. Because the nonprofit does not admit students, it is unlikely to be a target of litigation.
Colleges will be able to suppress racial information from both the printable and digital forms of applications. The Common App already allows colleges to hide information about test scores if they do not consider test scores in admissions. Colleges have also been able to hide students’ Social Security numbers, birth dates, gender and criminal history.
Mr. Coleman said he hoped the court’s focus during oral arguments on checking the box meant that it would rule against only the most simplistic and stereotypical use of race in admissions.
Otherwise, he said, trying to hide an applicant’s race could become an exercise in absurdity. For instance, during an applicant’s interview, “Are you supposed to go behind a curtain?”
Education
Video: Protesters Scuffle With Police During Pomona College Commencement
new video loaded: Protesters Scuffle With Police During Pomona College Commencement
transcript
transcript
Protesters Scuffle With Police During Pomona College Commencement
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators tried to block access to Pomona College’s graduation ceremony on Sunday.
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[chanting in call and response] Not another nickel, not another dime. No more money for Israel’s crime. Resistance is justified when people are occupied.
Recent episodes in U.S.
Education
Video: Police Use Pepper Spray on Protesters on G.W.U.’s Campus
new video loaded: Police Use Pepper Spray on Protesters on G.W.U.’s Campus
transcript
transcript
Police Use Pepper Spray on Protesters on G.W.U.’s Campus
Police officers arrested 33 pro-Palestinian protesters and cleared a tent encampment on the campus of George Washingon University.
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“The Metropolitan Police Department. If you are currently on George Washington University property, you are in violation of D.C. Code 22-3302, unlawful entry on property.” “Back up, dude, back up. You’re going to get locked up tonight — back up.” “Free, free Palestine.” “What the [expletive] are you doing?” [expletives] “I can’t stop — [expletives].”
Recent episodes in Israel-Hamas War
Education
How Counterprotesters at U.C.L.A. Provoked Violence, Unchecked for Hours
A satellite image of the UCLA campus.
On Tuesday night, violence erupted at an encampment that pro-Palestinian protesters had set up on April 25.
The image is annotated to show the extent of the pro-Palestinian encampment, which takes up the width of the plaza between Powell Library and Royce Hall.
The clashes began after counterprotesters tried to dismantle the encampment’s barricade. Pro-Palestinian protesters rushed to rebuild it, and violence ensued.
Arrows denote pro-Israeli counterprotesters moving towards the barricade at the edge of the encampment. Arrows show pro-Palestinian counterprotesters moving up against the same barricade.
Police arrived hours later, but they did not intervene immediately.
An arrow denotes police arriving from the same direction as the counterprotesters and moving towards the barricade.
A New York Times examination of more than 100 videos from clashes at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that violence ebbed and flowed for nearly five hours, mostly with little or no police intervention. The violence had been instigated by dozens of people who are seen in videos counterprotesting the encampment.
The videos showed counterprotesters attacking students in the pro-Palestinian encampment for several hours, including beating them with sticks, using chemical sprays and launching fireworks as weapons. As of Friday, no arrests had been made in connection with the attack.
To build a timeline of the events that night, The Times analyzed two livestreams, along with social media videos captured by journalists and witnesses.
The melee began when a group of counterprotesters started tearing away metal barriers that had been in place to cordon off pro-Palestinian protesters. Hours earlier, U.C.L.A. officials had declared the encampment illegal.
Security personnel hired by the university are seen in yellow vests standing to the side throughout the incident. A university spokesperson declined to comment on the security staff’s response.
It is not clear how the counterprotest was organized or what allegiances people committing the violence had. The videos show many of the counterprotesters were wearing pro-Israel slogans on their clothing. Some counterprotesters blared music, including Israel’s national anthem, a Hebrew children’s song and “Harbu Darbu,” an Israeli song about the Israel Defense Forces’ campaign in Gaza.
As counterprotesters tossed away metal barricades, one of them was seen trying to strike a person near the encampment, and another threw a piece of wood into it — some of the first signs of violence.
Attacks on the encampment continued for nearly three hours before police arrived.
Counterprotesters shot fireworks toward the encampment at least six times, according to videos analyzed by The Times. One of them went off inside, causing protesters to scream. Another exploded at the edge of the encampment. One was thrown in the direction of a group of protesters who were carrying an injured person out of the encampment.
Some counterprotesters sprayed chemicals both into the encampment and directly at people’s faces.
At times, counterprotesters swarmed individuals — sometimes a group descended on a single person. They could be seen punching, kicking and attacking people with makeshift weapons, including sticks, traffic cones and wooden boards.
In one video, protesters sheltering inside the encampment can be heard yelling, “Do not engage! Hold the line!”
In some instances, protesters in the encampment are seen fighting back, using chemical spray on counterprotesters trying to tear down barricades or swiping at them with sticks.
Except for a brief attempt to capture a loudspeaker used by counterprotesters, and water bottles being tossed out of the encampment, none of the videos analyzed by The Times show any clear instance of encampment protesters initiating confrontations with counterprotesters beyond defending the barricades.
Shortly before 1 a.m. — more than two hours after the violence erupted — a spokesperson with the mayor’s office posted a statement that said U.C.L.A officials had called the Los Angeles Police Department for help and they were responding “immediately.”
Officers from a separate law enforcement agency — the California Highway Patrol — began assembling nearby, at about 1:45 a.m. Riot police with the L.A.P.D. joined them a few minutes later. Counterprotesters applauded their arrival, chanting “U.S.A., U.S.A., U.S.A.!”
Just four minutes after the officers arrived, counterprotesters attacked a man standing dozens of feet from the officers.
Twenty minutes after police arrive, a video shows a counterprotester spraying a chemical toward the encampment during a scuffle over a metal barricade. Another counterprotester can be seen punching someone in the head near the encampment after swinging a plank at barricades.
Fifteen minutes later, while those in the encampment chanted “Free, free Palestine,” counterprotesters organized a rush toward the barricades. During the rush, a counterprotester pulls away a metal barricade from a woman, yelling “You stand no chance, old lady.”
Throughout the intermittent violence, officers were captured on video standing about 300 feet away from the area for roughly an hour, without stepping in.
It was not until 2:42 a.m. that officers began to move toward the encampment, after which counterprotesters dispersed and the night’s violence between the two camps mostly subsided.
The L.A.P.D. and the California Highway Patrol did not answer questions from The Times about their responses on Tuesday night, deferring to U.C.L.A.
While declining to answer specific questions, a university spokesperson provided a statement to The Times from Mary Osako, U.C.L.A.’s vice chancellor of strategic communications: “We are carefully examining our security processes from that night and are grateful to U.C. President Michael Drake for also calling for an investigation. We are grateful that the fire department and medical personnel were on the scene that night.”
L.A.P.D. officers were seen putting on protective gear and walking toward the barricade around 2:50 a.m. They stood in between the encampment and the counterprotest group, and the counterprotesters began dispersing.
While police continued to stand outside the encampment, a video filmed at 3:32 a.m. shows a man who was walking away from the scene being attacked by a counterprotester, then dragged and pummeled by others. An editor at the U.C.L.A. student newspaper, the Daily Bruin, told The Times the man was a journalist at the paper, and that they were walking with other student journalists who had been covering the violence. The editor said she had also been punched and sprayed in the eyes with a chemical.
On Wednesday, U.C.L.A.’s chancellor, Gene Block, issued a statement calling the actions by “instigators” who attacked the encampment unacceptable. A spokesperson for California Gov. Gavin Newsom criticized campus law enforcement’s delayed response and said it demands answers.
Los Angeles Jewish and Muslim organizations also condemned the attacks. Hussam Ayloush, the director of the Greater Los Angeles Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, called on the California attorney general to investigate the lack of police response. The Jewish Federation Los Angeles blamed U.C.L.A. officials for creating an unsafe environment over months and said the officials had “been systemically slow to respond when law enforcement is desperately needed.”
Fifteen people were reportedly injured in the attack, according to a letter sent by the president of the University of California system to the board of regents.
The night after the attack began, law enforcement warned pro-Palestinian demonstrators to leave the encampment or be arrested. By early Thursday morning, police had dismantled the encampment and arrested more than 200 people from the encampment.
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