SPEAKER_02
Hello and welcome to .edu, the higher education podcast from the American Council on Education. I'm your host, John Fansmith with A.
C.E.'s Government Relations Division, and I'm joined by my regular co-host, Lorela Spinoza. Hi, Lorel.
SPEAKER_01
Hey, John. How's it going?
SPEAKER_02
It's good. Welcome back. We missed you on the last episode.
SPEAKER_01
Yes, that was a good one. I enjoyed that listening to that, Lindsay Waite.
SPEAKER_02
Well, so you skipped it, but you at least listened to it.
SPEAKER_01
That's right. I skipped it, but listened to it.
SPEAKER_02
That's sort of like minimal co-host responsibility. Exactly. I'm glad you're caught up.
Yeah, I'm glad you're caught up. We're going to be joined in just a little bit by our guest today, Julie J. Park. She's an associate professor of education at the University of Maryland College Park, and her research addresses how race, religion, and social class affect diversity and equity in higher education, in particular the experience of Asian-American college students. Before we get to Julie, though, I just mentioned you were away the last time we were doing this.
Were you away doing fun things, or were you doing things like I was, which were boring and entirely DC-based?
SPEAKER_01
No, I was doing fun things. Well, a fun vacation thing. I went to Maine, Southwest Harbor, Maine, where my husband's family is from, from Maine in general, but we went to Acadia National Park.
Did some hiking, fresh air, the leaves were starting to turn. It's very lovely. It was a good time of year to be up there.
That was nice. Then I went to Boston for a board retreat. I said on the board of college possible.
We had Jim McCorkle on as one of our earlier podcast guests. Our first podcast guest. That's right.
Everyone should go back and listen to that one, too.
SPEAKER_02
If you haven't listened to it several more times to increase our hits, I'd appreciate that.
SPEAKER_01
Exactly. And rate us highly. Then I came back home and left again for Chicago.
I went to Haku's annual conference, the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities. We've had them on as well. It's all in the family.
I spoke at their Dean's Forum on our Race and Ethnicity Project, which of course the website is equityandhirehead.org. We'll actually talk about those data that the research team here at ACE has produced with Julie when we get to Julie. It's full dissemination of that work now, conference season, fall conference season.
People are really hungry for that information. It's being very well received. That was a good trip.
SPEAKER_02
I like the consistency that John Turk, who filled in for you last week, had also just been to Chicago. That's right. We keep a regular rotation of ACE staff headed to Chicago.
It's a great city. Serving the Midwest well. That's right.
We'll be back in just a second with our guest. This episode is sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
SPEAKER_01
And we're back. Welcome, Julie. Glad to be here.
Yeah, not too far of a commute for you from University of Maryland, but we're really glad that you came to be with us in person. You and I have known each other for a number of years, maybe 14 years or something. Oh my goodness.
I know. That sounds old when I say that. But we went to graduate school together at UCLA.
We've both long been focused on issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion, among other things. And I think it would help our listeners to hear a little bit about your background, your scholarship, why you do the work that you do before we jump into our discussion today.
SPEAKER_00
Sure. I'd be happy to do that. I am a Proudman Westerner.
So I grew up in the great state of Ohio. I'm the child of Korean immigrants and so second generation Asian American. And I've taught at University of Maryland College Park since about 2011.
So moved to the DC area around there. And my research mainly looks at race, diversity in higher education, things related to affirmative action, campus climate. I have a book that came out last year.
It's called Race on Campus. Great book. Colin, Debunking Myths with Data.
And so that was my big project of that. I was glad to finally get out the door.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah. That's a great book, by the way, for everyone that wants to read a book about race on campus that is very accessible. I really appreciated how you made the language so accessible for a variety of readers.
So anyone can really pick that up and feel more informed about how to manage race on campus, how to manage the issues.
SPEAKER_02
I was going to say, as someone who is not as academically trained as the two of you are, I don't know if it's a compliment, but the readability of the book is really very impressive. I mean, it lays complicated issues out in a way that just makes it very clear. So I enjoyed it immensely from a non-academic perspective.
Yeah. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_01
There you go. Yeah. Should do an endorsement. I know.
SPEAKER_00
You can leave a review on Amazon.
SPEAKER_01
That's right. Well, you know, this is a salient topic for this moment. And we're going to talk about the Harvard decision around race-conscious admissions in a little bit.
But you also have contributed to our Race and Ethnicity and Higher Education project. You wrote an essay for us entitled, An Uneven Playing Field, The Complex Educational Experiences of Asian Americans. And, you know, when you look at the data in this report, this big report we put out back in February, and I mentioned at the website earlier, we see a narrative for Asian students that they're doing quite well.
You know, this is a narrative that I think has been around for a long time. They're 6% of the population, so they're small in terms of the demographic in the U.S. But on the whole, they're really widely talked about in higher ed as being high achievers. We see them going to college at higher rates.
You know, educational attainment is higher. They're studying STEM. You know, they look really good.
But what I appreciated about your essay is that you break down, you know, some of these common stereotypes of this group. And I'd love for you to just tell us a little bit about what the narrative and the misconceptions are in terms of this population.
SPEAKER_00
Sure. Yeah, the first broad set of misconceptions I think you described really well, which is the idea that Asian Americans are sort of this monolithic group, that they're pretty much all high achievers, that they're doing, you know, really well. And when you look at everyone as a lump or you don't desegregate between different ethnic subgroups or across social class, then, you know, it could look that way.
But definitely when you break the population apart, you see that there's a wide range of diversity. And so that's sort of the first big myth, right, the idea that, hey, Asians are just doing great, right? But on the other side, I talked in my essay about unpacking, while it is true that certain ethnic subgroups tend to have, you know, lower rates of educational attainment and tend to face more challenges, I talked about sort of a second misconception, which was to not, the misconception that these groups are in some way failing, right? And I warn against, you know, only defining them by this idea that, oh, these are sort of the outliers, right? These are the ones that are just kind of not doing as well and warning against the propensity to only define them by sort of this idea that they're falling behind on their own when in reality, it's a little more complicated, right? And so these groups tend to encounter really entrenched forms of structural inequality, whether that's racism, classism, substandard, public schools, and the like. And so that was the second.
And then the third aim of the essay was to unpack, you know, that the bigger picture, because I think from the report, right, if you look at just the statistics at face value, you know, Asian Americans on the whole are outpacing certain groups. But the question is, is that just, you know, is it sort of like a neutral thing, right? Are they just doing maybe what they're supposed to be doing and other groups are falling behind, right? I think that's one read of it that the public tends to kind of pick up. Or is there something that some Asian Americans have access to, right? Are there forms of structural advantage that a section of the population has access to? So that was the thing that I wanted to highlight most in my essay about how the system works in a way for many, not all, but for many Asian Americans where they're able to access high quality public schooling, they're able to have high rates of participation in things like SAT prep, etc.
So it's not just that this group is just, you know, doing their thing and other groups are falling behind. It's that this system is working for certain groups better than it is for others.
SPEAKER_01
Right. And it's sort of masking the disadvantage of some of the other ethnic subgroups, as you said. Yeah. So tell us a little bit about how this complicates, how we think about students as being good or bad, or what are some other broad implications that these data have spoken to you about?
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I think with Asian Americans, the tricky thing is, you know, maybe sometimes why people shy away from talking about the structural advantages that some, not all Asian Americans have, is because Asian, even these Asian Americans will also encounter racism, other forms of structural inequality, etc. So I think in that way they complicate this narrative, right? It seems sometimes we kind of, it is simpler, right? To just say, okay, this group has encounters just disadvantaged, right? Across the board. In this group, you know, encounters advantage across the board.
And, you know, I think Asian Americans, different sectors of the Asian American population, even the diversity that exists within that community, you can, you know, pick out a certain chunk and say, yes, this group on the whole does have access to higher quality public schools, things like SAT prep, etc. But they also will likely encounter potentially racism from teachers. They might, yeah, experience other forms of discrimination, etc.
So it's not sort of this either or it's kind of a both end. It's possible to experience some advantage, but then also experience certain disadvantages for, whether it's during, in the educational system or even later on in the transition to the workforce or sort of mobility throughout different fields.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah. And are there certain subpopulations that people are paying more attention to, the ones that have more advantage in terms of the ethnic subgroups?
SPEAKER_00
Yeah. I mean, you know, Chinese Americans are a really interesting one where they're very much sort of this bimodal population, right? You have higher SES Chinese Americans and then you have very much lower SES Chinese Americans.
SPEAKER_01
Socioeconomic status.
SPEAKER_00
Yes, socioeconomic status. And they really complicate some of these conversations because, right, a really hot issue right now are the elite high schools in New York City, right? Right. Testing into these high schools.
Yes. And Asian Americans tend to be, including Chinese Americans, tend to be very well represented in those competitive high schools. And it's really interesting because here's a case where a lower income population of a subgroup has been able to access some of these resources that can help propel people towards social mobility.
On the other hand, of course, probably the best case scenario is to be coming from a more affluent background and be harnessing those advantages, right? Sort of advantage, cumulative advantage. And so that's a group that I think is complicated, right? And we want to be able to open the door to access an opportunity for all of these students. But the question, some of the difficult questions are, well, we want to do that to all students regardless of skin color.
We want to recognize that the potential that exists across racial ethnic group and we're losing a lot of talent because we have a system that is very capturing only a very narrow aspect of excellence. But at the same time, I can see, especially among certain low income Asian American groups, say Chinese American groups, they've responded to the messages that the system has sent them. The system has said, if you put all your eggs in this basket of, say, test prep or just studying your heart out for this test, this is your golden ticket, right? And so you have to, on the other hand, I have empathy because that makes sense, right? Especially if you're growing up in poverty or coming to this country with very few resources, the idea that, hey, you could get out through education is a very powerful one.
But at the same time, so the system, you know, in some ways has supported social mobility for these low income Asian Americans. But on the other hand, as I said, it unfortunately has done so by operating under sort of narrow conceptions of excellence, right? And so I think New York City, right, I don't envy them. They're having very difficult to say the least conversations about how do you rework the system to support mobility for everyone? Because at the end of the day, we all rise and fall together.
Right.
SPEAKER_02
And there was something really interesting in your book on that point. You mentioned the test prep that I thought was sort of fascinating that I think it was low income Chinese Americans had a higher percentage of students taking test prep than high income white Americans.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, definitely low income Korean Americans. Okay, all right. I don't remember off the bat whether that was true for Chinese Americans, but yes, Korean Americans are another group that have really embraced the test prep bandwackin.
If you will. And it's interesting because that's a dynamic that cruts across social class within certain chunks of the Asian American community versus for other groups. I think you would see that more affluent students are much more likely to take test prep than others.
Right.
SPEAKER_02
And that's sort of, there were some other things within the Asian American community. The community, not to get too far into the Harvard case, but one of the things talked about was that the people who brought the lawsuit had cited East Asians and their acceptance rates, but it excluded Southeast Asians from the percentage of people I believe. Am I getting that correctly?
SPEAKER_00
I think in some of the portrayals of the data, I believe, in the original complaint.
SPEAKER_02
There were disparities if you separate out the groups that way. And is that sort of consistent across the subgroups within Asian Americans or is that?
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I mean, generally, if you do disaggregate the data, you will see patterns of inequity.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah. And this is a big issue for data, however, which is that the way that it's often collected, including at the federal level for a lot of the data that we use in our report, even the race and ethnicity report. But any of the data that you'll see out there is not disaggregated.
I mean, that's kind of where we started with the picture-looking Rosie, because everyone sort of lumped together and you don't see difference. I just want to ask one final question about this. And it's the role of family.
So when I'm out on the road talking about these data, inevitably someone will ask a question about, well, you know, is it partly cultural in terms of some of these trends, the role of family? Like you were saying about maybe families really getting on board with sort of all the things that one is expected to do the test prep and there's like some kind of cultural family aspect to that. Is that something that you've seen with your work?
SPEAKER_00
Sure. You know, it's interesting because people say Asian Americans have a value for education. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02
But in some ways that suggests that other groups don't.
SPEAKER_00
And I think what we've come to see in our research is really generally all groups have a value for education. And generally most, if not all families, right, have a great value of education. It's just both sort of the resources and maybe the socialization and access to information about how to navigate the system definitely cuts across differently depending on groups.
And so with Asian Americans and the role, Asian Americans and the role of family, I sometimes caution away the idea of using this sort of quick explanation of, oh, it's their culture, right? Which is kind of this shorthand. And in some ways, you know, if you define culture as, oh, what do people see as normal, right? Then you might say, yes. But at the same time, cultural influence very much, you know, this is academic explanation is very much influenced by structural patterns.
And so for Asian Americans, some of the most significant ones have been patterns of immigration, right? So 1965 immigration reform, the first wave really opened the door for highly educated Asian American professionals and Asian Americans who are coming over here for the specific purpose of graduate study, like my own father who came here in 1965, 66, 67, sorry, dad. And so, right, this wasn't just a random sample, they were really creaming the crop, right? And so that was really the way that set the pace in terms of these are families, yes, who are pushing, you know, education by I think you probably would have seen the same thing if you took the upper echelon from any other country. And later on, you had immigration policies that opened the door for family reunification and for more socioeconomically diverse pools of Asian immigrants, but sort of the standard of what was normal had really been set by that first major wave of highly educated immigrants.
SPEAKER_01
That's it. I think an amazing point to make about where a group starts in education when they arrive, because again, I think that, you know, this question about culture, it comes up for the Hispanic population as well. Oh, there's some cultural differences here that are driving students to take out less loans or fewer loans, you know, or driving to enroll in college, which we've seen an enormous growth of Hispanic students over the last 20 years enrolling.
But yes, it's so much more complicated. So now I have a better fuel for what to say when I get these questions. And I think I'll direct them to your essay as an expert on sort of breaking down these migration patterns and, you know, just how complicated it actually is.
SPEAKER_02
And I think that's sort of an interesting point to transition to something that obviously has been greatly in the news, but touches on all of the things we've just discussed, which is this recent decision at Harvard, recent district court decision involving Harvard and the district court decision, which is based on the law suit by students for fair admission, which is a group that opposes affirmative action and has pushed litigation in a number of different against a number of different institutions. The district court judge handed down a decision last week, I think last Tuesday.
SPEAKER_01
It was a great birthday, actually. Yeah, I was like, thank you for the birthday present. Yeah, it was a great birthday present.
October 1st.
SPEAKER_02
And Loretta is tipping her hand a little bit here, but the judge ruled overwhelmingly in Harvard's favor, essentially said on the four counts of the suit that was brought on all four they found in favor of Harvard. Obviously, the basis of the suit was that Harvard was systematically discriminating against Asian Americans that they're doing a variety of things using race as a determining factor and in admissions that they weren't considering sufficiently race neutral alternatives to admissions. Trying to think there were two other counts where I'm already mentioned the intentional discrimination against Asian Americans and that they were using racial balancing, essentially coming up with predetermined percentages of students of different ethnicity to include as part of their class.
Again, district court found again, or found in Harvard's favor on all those. The one sort of interesting thing in the decision, though, is that they said there might be still some discrimination in Harvard's admission process. But the judge thought that that might be the result more of implicit bias on the part of people who work in admissions at Harvard rather than any systemic.
Thanks for the line a lot of people talked about was the judge described Harvard as having a perfect process, not necessarily perfect outcome, but a perfect process. Julie, I'm sure you were following this case very closely. Just kind of interested to hear your thoughts.
And I guess before we say that, we should say this is the district court decision. Students for fair admissions has already appealed. So this will undoubtedly go to the appellate court.
I think people think a Supreme Court hearing is inevitable and will have yet another. I guess this will be the third at whatever point it reaches Supreme Court in the last decade challenge to affirmative action and higher education admissions. So this is by no means the end of this process, but obviously very positive first step and where we stand.
So sorry, Julie. But just your thoughts on this relates directly to your scholarship.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, sure. Happy to weigh in. I have to give my standard disclosure that I served as a consulting expert on this case on the side of Harvard up until July 2018.
And so all of you shared here are my own and don't reflect anything related to Harvard or anything learned through the course of my engagement. But yeah, it was October 1st. It was funny because I was slated to go to NYU the next day to be on a panel to talk about this case.
And so I was just looking through my notes beforehand and thinking of kind of thinking in my head like I'm a little tired of talking about the same things. And I almost wish like I had something new to talk about. And so we got our way.
We got something really new the day before and it really injected a lot of energy. Loretta will go to birthday present and you get a new topic. It was great timing.
Yeah, I was pleasantly surprised by the ruling. I was like reading it all the night before the panel like cramming the 140 pages or so. But yeah, I mean, it was really thorough.
I can see why it took a little while to come out. I thought that the judge really wanted to leave no stone unturned in sort of addressing all the big but also some of what might people might think of as kind of some of the even minor details, right? Really wanting to address sort of alternative explanations, right? SFFA is saying this is discrimination and the judge offering reasons for why it wasn't necessarily. I thought it was interesting either she or you know, she has some clerks who have some sort of pretty strong social science stats background because they really spent a lot of time and they needed to unweighing the statistics, right? The testimony offered by both sides, right? Who had the economists like this case really was the battle of the dueling statisticians, right? Looking at the different analyses and so she really dived in and you know, she was talking about interaction effects and sampling and differences and selection of variables and all sorts of things that, you know, I'm not quite sure if it could have looked different, right? If it were a different judge, but with this judge, she paid a lot of detail and addressed a lot of the nuance and even some of the uncertainty, right? Some of the gray that can an ambiguity that can exist behind statistics.
And I think the best thing was that she recognized that while these analyses on both sides, right, can offer us a lot of insight at the end of the day admissions officers, right? There's still things that they take into account that can't always be captured neatly, right? By the variables that are included in an analysis. So she paid a lot of some attention to that. I think she addressed pretty explicitly that SFFA didn't bring forth adequate evidence, right? And the way of sort of proof of discrimination and where that was most telling was that they didn't enter any single applicants file into evidence or they didn't have any applicants who were rejected, testify.
And Harvard did. Well, there was through, I think, represented through the MWACP and Lawyers Conference, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights. And they brought forth students, right, who testified during the trial, including two, I think at least two Asian American students who talk, who were Harvard students who were admitted and they talked about how they talked about their race ethnicity during their, their, in their essays.
They talked about how if they couldn't talk about their race that would really be censoring a part of themselves or losing a part of themselves. And so it was very much in the judge acknowledged like, you know, one of the really, I thought, eloquent parts where she talked about how it would be an undue burden on Asian American students, if they were not allowed to talk about their race ethnicity is what really the testimony demonstrated. And so, and on the other hand, SFFA didn't, you know, they said our students have been discriminated against, etc.
But they didn't offer any individual student files and I don't know if that could change, right, if the, as the case moves up the sort of the ladder, but that seemed to be something that she paid attention to, right.
SPEAKER_01
So yeah, lots of really it was a very thorough ruling. Yeah, and lots of data, like you said, which is really uncommon to see in these decisions, say, as they're written up. Yeah, I think I had maybe some of the same, same reactions as you and, and, and also, as everyone that follows race conscious admissions and, and disclaimer I was an admissions officer at a highly selective institution so I've lived this life of reviewing applications and taking a myriad of factors into account race being one of them.
This is a moment where you breathe a sigh of relief. And then you like pretty quickly say, okay, what's next. You know, it feels good that Harvard was vindicated.
I do appreciate though this, this bringing up of implicit bias because yeah, these are, these are people sitting down with applications, making judgments right this is not a robot who you're not scoring checking the box. You're not. And in fact, you're, yeah, I mean, like pretty much are not even meant to do it that way.
Like you're really taking a host of things into account and crafting a class that, you know, in the case of Harvard's as a small class for the number of applicants that they get. So this is like not an unfeel the job to begin with. It's very hard.
And of course people bring their own biases, right, they, they bring their own life experiences. So I appreciated her bringing that up as well but just acknowledging that this is a win but it's not the end of the road. And I feel like, yeah, all of us that follow it and are very much in favor of an institution's ability to consider race as one factor in the process or sort of gearing up for the next round.
SPEAKER_02
And I think it's one of those things obviously at ACU we've been following it closely our members care very deeply about this. This has been a principle for American higher education for a long time, the importance of diversity and importance of a holistic process for admissions that considers all these factors. You know, I kind of mentioned this but I do worry a little bit that these cases were decades apart and now they seem to be coming a few years apart and and obviously the composition of the Supreme Court looks very different now than it did a few years ago and certainly that did a decade ago.
In terms of, so Julia just sort of asked, obviously we can't foretell the legal process but do you think this ruling has any implications for what institutions will do in terms of their admissions process? Is this affirmation of the existing processes basically or do you think certain schools will look at this and say, well maybe we should be doing something a little bit different. Obviously implicit bias training might be something that a lot of schools should start thinking about but are there other sort of implications to take if you are a college or university president looking at how you do admissions?
SPEAKER_00
Sure. I think it's just an affirmation that everything needs to be done with so much kind of attention, right? And that the idea that while you know some level of implicit bias is inevitable that you really want to kind of tighten up, right? Tighten up the ship to the extent possible and so that might include more explicit training, right, around the role of bias, right, both implicit and explicit and we know that this is an issue that affects pretty much all students of color, right? So we do have existing research that documents bias against admissions against African Americans in the process. We know with low income students that if you receive more information on them, admissions officers are more likely to admit them, which is pretty much the same.
Which is a good thing but then also suggests in previous years probably there were a lot of students, right, who weren't getting the benefit of the most thorough read because you know they maybe a reviewer didn't have all the context, etc. You know the judge did make note that, you know, she noted the consistent testimony that you know that Harvard's admissions officers did not, very explicit that they did not consider race until the calculation or the assessment of the overall rating. And that in the meantime, I think in between the time the complaint was filed and somewhere around the trial, Harvard did, the admissions office did issue some more explicit sort of training and material to officers being specific around like don't take some of these, you know, terms or etc.
Like just to make sure that instructions basically about not stereotyping students. I think was there was some sort of manual or instructions that were released and she said that was a good thing. And so I might hope that we might see some of the more some more of that right in institutions and maybe increased levels of checks and balances, although I will say you know I agree L'oreal the implicit biases.
Right, it's the whole fact is it's implicit right you the whole point is you don't know about it. But at the same time I think Harvard's review committee and others right they really from my familiarity they really made an effort like just to be both as thorough as possible but it seems like you know in this whole process. So in the person review right you had sort of constant checks and balances constant conversations, re conversations about these students etc.
And so I think they were already right trying to run a very tight ship. So yeah. And then also there's the entire issue of diversifying the admissions profession to begin with is, you know, critical we know that it's a pretty less diverse right profession right.
Yeah, mostly at the most elite institutions. Yes, right and they lose a lot of entry level people right which is where you tend to see the most diversity and so there's some interesting I think initiatives there's like a group they're running this effort called hack the gates right where they're trying to just really like brainstorm just like thinking outside the box and it's being it's a collaborative between researchers and actually admissions officers who are coming together to just say like how could we really turn this thing inside out to make it more equitable and so I hope that they'll be
SPEAKER_01
issuing recommendations and they're coming at a good time right. Yeah, that's right and I appreciate the collaboration of researchers and practitioners right you can't have have one or the other informing how this works it really is a collaborative effort to inform how practice should should should play out. And of course since you're a researcher and a former.
SPEAKER_02
You kind of have to say that.
SPEAKER_01
These are your people, but I do appreciate it like I appreciate my practitioner experience and now have the research lens and the policy lens being in DC it's it's a nice combo. I wish everyone could could sort of experience that but.
SPEAKER_02
And that's a great point to end on July I do want to give you chances or anything else you'd like to say before we thank you sincerely and give you back the rest of your day.
SPEAKER_00
No, but it was great chatting was really good thanks for coming over.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, thank you so much it was great having you on and we'll be back in just a second to talk about what's going on here in Washington.
SPEAKER_01
And we're back that was a great conversation.
SPEAKER_02
It really was yeah. I sort of said this about the book you know the readability of her book but just having her here and sort of walking through some of these things it's you know somebody who's not as well versed in these issues as you are it's it's incredibly helpful to have somebody who can talk to you in a way that makes it really clear and. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01
And we need more of that we actually need more researchers to do that because you know there's a lot of evidence now on this issue. Certainly on race on campus overall but but also you know the very issues she was speaking to and and we want that to be in the hands of people that make decisions and. Absolutely.
You know have the power to shape student experience I really appreciated that. So yeah speaking of the Supreme Court. We have another case that also involves race.
You know, to some degree here with DACA. Right. So so this is marching its way as well. I know you want to fill us in about that.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02
About a CES involvement. And I think people are probably familiar with this issue we for you know if you want to go a little bit deeper on the issue we did an earlier podcast with John I go a lot from Hispanic Association of colleges and universities. More in depth on the issue but the big sort of recent news is that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear three consolidated cases about DACA and the treatment of students in the DACA program.
A C on Friday. Friday. I'm trying to remember what the date was but.
After my birthday.
SPEAKER_02
I think the fifth maybe filed a brief on behalf of ourselves and 43 other organizations essentially asserting the points that we've made all along that these students both need clarity and certainty as to their status and that. In addition that the administration's arguments for terminating the protections that were extended them exceeded their authority and administrative procedures act. You know, this is again as sort of mentioned this is a movement falling for a while in September.
A C organized the letter in coordination with a bunch of other associations that had over 600 institutions sign on and support of DACA students asking Congress to do something I think. That's that's worth pointing out we're coming up on two years since the administration rescinded these protections. And there's still been no legislative solution even though as you know Laurel this is you know the dreamers have incredible bipartisan incredible bipartisan and support around the country in terms of.
SPEAKER_01
Voters really wanting to see these students succeed they came over when they were young. Many of them are enrolling in college they have serving in the military have the ability to contribute to our economy and our society and yet. They're in this limbo and just can't imagine what that feels like for these students and their families.
SPEAKER_02
Well and you think about two years two years for someone who's studying in college. I mean that's a massive portion of your time where you're you know hopefully remaining in school and attempting to complete your degree you worry of course about the students who may. See this is a barrier to completing right so you know frustratingly the Supreme Court will take this up.
Even when they return to decision they'll hear arguments at the next term were a year away at the earliest from hearing a decision so again that's one more year for these students who are going to be in limbo it's it's frustrating you would obviously hope Congress would act. You see in our members certainly would hope Congress act but no real.
SPEAKER_01
They're not they're not really moving they they seem to be.
SPEAKER_02
Not acting is kind of what this Congress has been doing. That's right so yeah but we of course will keep our listeners updated on this and for more information and updates and as well as to read a copy of the brief itself you can go to AC's website and review all that material and we'll have links.
SPEAKER_01
On the podcast website to it's net dot edu our newly designed website our newly designed very beautiful website.
SPEAKER_02
Check it out with new headshots of all of us. Yes I was making fun of John Turks headshot last week. I don't know if that actually made it into the episode.
I don't know I don't remember. I know it's unfair because it's actually looks far better than mine but but you know I gotta try and hold to go and check a little bit. Yeah well we hope you enjoyed this episode as much as we did both from the conversation just the fun we have making it.
If you have questions or comments or feedback we'd love to hear from you. You can email us at podcast at a SNET dot edu that's podcast at AC and et dot edu. And you can find additional episodes of our podcast as well as all the links to the information both about our guest Julie Park's work and the work we mentioned resources around DACA on our website at AC and et dot edu slash podcast.
As always you can listen to the podcast on iTunes Google podcasts or any other place you subscribe to podcasts and I'm not sure I even got that last one. There's so many places. I know stitchers there's a lot of places right wherever you buy your podcast someone said on something I was listening to and I was like okay buys their podcast.
It's free though ours is free. So Audrey's urging me to say goodbye so thank you again for listening and have a great rest of your day wherever you are.