Daily Lumina News 110222

With two major affirmative-action cases before the U.S. Supreme Court—Students for Fair Admissions v. UNC and Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard—higher-ed experts and the public alike are looking for clues to how the justices may be leaning.
The moment is also seeing an outpouring of debate in the media. Here’s a roundup of how that discourse is playing out.

As the Supreme Court hears arguments on affirmative action, racial disparities in college enrollment and graduation rates remain entrenched. In some cases, they appear to have worsened with time.
Recent research looked at 101 of the most selective public colleges across the United States and found that many had failed to bring more students of color to their campuses, even as their states diversified around them. Inequities like these have ripple effects through college and beyond graduation.

Creating a cultural center for Middle Eastern and North African students has become a priority at college campuses throughout the United States, where pressure is building to acknowledge their distinct racial and ethnic identity.
It’s part of a broader cultural reckoning about how people from this vast region of diverse languages, religions, colors, and cultures want to be recognized and valued.

A startling 3 million skilled trades jobs will sit unfilled by 2028.
Traditional public schools alone aren’t responsible for the student debt or skilled labor crises—but a longstanding Massachusetts education experiment shows promise at addressing both.

While the practice of race-based affirmative action in college admissions has been sustained over several decades, proponents of it are bracing for the Supreme Court's right-wing majority to end it.
Natasha Warikoo, a professor at Tufts University and an expert on racial and ethnic inequality in education, offers a primer on affirmative action and why it can and should continue to play a role in the future of higher education.

Before this week's hearing on two cases that could mean the end for affirmative action, Muskaan Arshad gathered with hundreds of other students and advocates to make the case for upholding the policies and to keep fighting, regardless of the outcome.
Dozens of speakers highlighted the barriers communities of color face and how affirmative action in college admissions addresses those barriers. Others recounted the exclusion of Black people from higher education.