Advancing Equity-Minded Graduate Education in a Changing Legal Environment

Since last summer, CGS has been working with a coalition of education leaders and legal experts on developing resources that support diverse and inclusive graduate programs while remaining attuned to state and national legal contexts.

The project, funded from a grant by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, came in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2023 rulings, placed new limitations on the consideration of race in higher education admissions. A committee of university leaders, researchers and legal experts was convened over the past year to advise CGS staff on the development of two equity-minded graduate education resources for distribution to graduate deans, faculty and staff.

Designing Law-Attentive Policies for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: A Webinar for University Leadership

In September, CGS hosted a webinar on principles critical for supporting equitable, mission-aligned policies and programs that also comply with current anti-discrimination law. The webinar opened with highlights from the a legal resource developed by CGS’s legal partner for the project, EducationCounsel: Navigating the Post-SFFA Landscape: Advancing Equity-Minded, Law-Attentive Priority Actions in Graduate, Undergraduate and Professional Higher Education. The webinar showcased resources that provide informed decision-making, covering programmatic areas such as recruitment, admissions and inclusive program design, among others.

Attendees also heard from Traevena Byrd, Vice President, General Counsel and Board Secretary, American University, and Wojtek Chodzko-Zajko, Dean of the Graduate College, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Webinar attendees learned how to 1) identify areas of opportunity for advancing equity through programs and policies on their campuses; 2) distinguish between levels of legal risk associated with different types of policies; 3) refine their plans for communication and coordination with relevant offices on campus; and 4) identify the potential roles that graduate deans can play in advancing these issues.

A second resource, Supporting Equity in a Changing Legal Landscape: A Resource for Leaders of Graduate Programs and Institutions, will be released by the end of this year. This publication will help graduate deans, faculty and admissions staff advance equity in their programs and institutions by creating transparent and equitable systems and encouraging collaboration among campus units to help more students thrive in graduate programs.

At this year’s Annual Meeting, Julie Posselt, Executive Director, Center for Enrollment Research Policy and Practice and Associate Dean, Graduate School, University of Southern California, is giving a plenary presentation titled Systemic Change in Graduate Education: Structure and Strategies for Effective Leadership. In this plenary, Dr. Julie Posselt will present research about the mechanisms of systemic change, providing examples of successful efforts in graduate education and concrete strategies for leading through commonly encountered challenges. Register for the Annual meeting now.