Abstract
Through an analysis of relevant social science evidence, this article provides a deeper understanding of critical mass, a concept that has become central in litigation efforts related to affirmative action admissions policies that seek to further the educational benefits of diversity. We demonstrate that the concept of critical mass requires an understanding of the conditions needed for meaningful interactions and participation among students, given the particular institutional context. To highlight this contextual definition of critical mass and to avoid further obfuscations in the legal debate, we offer the term dynamic diversity and outline four main components of dynamic diversity that institutions can attend to. By thinking of dynamic diversity as the goal, institutions and lawyers should be better poised to answer the question of how much diversity is necessary for leveraging its educational benefits.
Keywords
I understand my job under our precedents [is] to determine if your use of race is narrowly tailored to a compelling interest. The compelling interest you identify is attaining a critical mass of minority students at the University of Texas, but you won’t tell me what the critical mass is. How am I supposed to do the job that our precedents say I should do?
Chief Justice Roberts, cited here during the oral argument of the most recent affirmative action case before the U.S. Supreme Court, Fisher v. University of Texas (2013), expressed a central concern that lawyers and higher education institutions have struggled to address since the Court’s 2003 affirmative action decisions in Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger. What is the definition of “critical mass” and how do we know when a higher education institution has achieved it so that there is sufficient diversity for the benefits of diversity to be realized? Although the concept of critical mass was central in the Fisher case, coming up 52 times during oral argument, the Court’s majority opinion did not fully address it. Instead, the Court remanded the case to the lower courts after concluding that they had not applied the standard of prior legal precedent. As the case returns to the lower court, judges and higher education administrators will need to grapple with the question of how much diversity is needed for the university to attain the educational benefits it seeks. Although the concept of critical mass is profoundly important within this debate, it remains poorly understood.
The purpose of this essay is to help build a deeper understanding of critical mass through an analysis of relevant social science evidence. The analysis is particularly timely in light of the implications of the Court’s decision in Fisher, which may require institutions to more thoroughly document the need for race-conscious admissions practices, guided by a clear definition of critical mass. Our analysis, informed by how the concept is implicated in the legal debate, suggests that the concept of critical mass is necessarily contextual and requires an understanding of the conditions that are needed for meaningful interactions and participation among students, given the particular institutional and state/local environment. As such, critical mass cannot be quantified in the general sense without regard to the particular educational context within which it arises.
Arguments in the legal arena have called for a definition that specifies a number and critiqued the concept as amorphous when one is not provided. Indeed, the fact that the concept cannot be quantified in a generalizable fashion led Justice Scalia to comment during oral argument in Fisher that it should no longer be called critical mass. “You should call it a cloud or something like that,” he suggested, as “mass . . . assumes numbers, either in size or certain weight.” 1 Nonetheless, any attempt to provide a one-size-fits-all number, absent other contextual considerations, would not only undermine the complexity of what is needed but could also render it an impermissible quota under constitutional requirements.
In this article, we engage with Justice Scalia’s suggestion for the use of a new term to better capture the various elements underlying the definition of critical mass, which has been obscured in the legal debate. 2 Instead of critical mass, we employ the term dynamic diversity—which focuses on the interactions among students within a particular context and under appropriate environmental conditions needed to realize the educational benefits of diversity. As employed here, the term dynamic diversity cannot be reduced to a generalizable number, and appropriately emphasizes the context-dependent nature of the notion of critical mass. This is not to say that numbers do not matter. Our analysis demonstrates that paying attention to numbers of students of color is necessary, but not sufficient, to meet all of the conditions needed for dynamic diversity to emerge so that institutions can attain the educational benefits of diversity. Institutions still require meaningful representation of students of color in a range of institutional and educational settings to signal that diversity is valued, to ensure students of color feel welcomed, to prevent tokenism and racial isolation, to incite positive learning experiences, and to sustain participation and engagement. The synergy of these factors—a function of numbers and contextual factors—contributes to dynamic diversity and garner desired educational outcomes.
By thinking of dynamic diversity as the goal, institutions and lawyers should be better poised to answer the question of how much diversity is needed for institutions to leverage the educational benefits of diversity. With dynamic diversity as the goal in mind, lawyers can work closely with institutions to gather evidence necessary for assessing whether the educational benefits of diversity are being realized on specific campuses. This will require institutions to not only attend to the number of students of color on campus, but to do so in the context of the state-, local-, and campus-level conditions that influence students’ experiences and possibilities for cross-racial interactions at their institution. Along the same lines, this new focus will require institutions to consider how students are experiencing the climate for diversity and if there are sufficient numbers to avoid tokenism and stereotype threat in the classroom. Lawyers, in turn, will need to present arguments that explain how institutions have set diversity goals in relation to evidence of inclusion or exclusion of various racial groups at different levels (state, local, institutional) to support a determination of whether it has achieved dynamic diversity.
Critical Mass and the Legal Debate
The concept of critical mass cannot be fully addressed without an understanding of how it is implicated in the legal debate about affirmative action. The term is relevant to the legal criteria of strict scrutiny, which is used to determine the constitutionality of affirmative action policies. Under a strict scrutiny analysis, the Court first determines whether the race-conscious policy furthers a “compelling interest.” When this condition is met, the Court then goes on to examine if the policy is “narrowly tailored” to achieve that interest. As we explain below, the concept of critical mass is implicated in both prongs of this legal analysis, but for different reasons and subject to different levels of overview by the courts.
The strict scrutiny standard represents the Court’s highest level of review and is designed to “smoke out” illegitimate consideration of race by assuring that the institution “is pursuing a goal important enough to warrant use of a highly suspect tool” (Johnson v. California, 2005). In the education context, however, postsecondary institutions also enjoy protection under the First Amendment, which has been interpreted to require deference to an institution’s academic judgments, including determinations of who may be admitted to study (Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 1978). As such, judicial review of race-conscious admissions policies require the Court to balance a rigorous overview of such policies (through a strict scrutiny analysis) with the deference for educational judgments institutions are entitled to under First Amendment principles. The Court has resolved this balance by providing deference to institutions on what constitutes a compelling interest, but, as most recently clarified in Fisher, not to determinations of whether race-conscious policies are narrowly tailored to further that interest. Given the latter, postsecondary institutions, lawyers, and judges will need a better working understanding of critical mass and the conditions necessary to further the educational benefits of diversity.
Compelling Interest
On the first prong of strict scrutiny—compelling interest—the Court has held that the educational benefits that flow from student body diversity meet the definition of a compelling interest. In past cases like Bakke and Grutter, the Court endorsed this interest as compelling because it is central to the academic mission of a university—a specific form of academic judgment protected by the First Amendment. Most recently in Fisher, the Court emphasized that “the attainment of a diverse student body . . . serves values beyond race alone, including classroom dialogue and the lessening of racial isolation and stereotypes,” and that “[p]art of ‘the business of a university [is] to provide that atmosphere which is most conducive to speculation, experiment, and creation,’” and this in turn leads to the question of “who may be admitted to study” (p. 6). Thus, the Court clarified that this is an academic judgment that is deserving of some, but not complete, judicial deference to a university’s experience and expertise, so long as courts are satisfied that institutions have provided a “reasoned, principled explanation” for their academic judgment (p. 9). The conditions that institutions need to attend to in order to provide an atmosphere that is “most conducive to speculation, experiment, and creation” are central to the concept of critical mass and an institution’s judgment of the conditions needed to foster “speculation, experiment, and creation.” Below, we outline the conditions necessary toward this end, as informed by social science research.
Narrow Tailoring
To determine whether the second prong of the analysis is met—the narrow tailoring determination—the Court has not articulated a fixed or singular measure, but has instead outlined a number of relevant criteria, which are ultimately context specific. These criteria, which the Court articulated in Bakke, Grutter, and Fisher, include making sure that the policy (a) does not operate as a quota; (b) is adopted after an institution’s good faith consideration of workable race-neutral alternatives; (c) involves a flexible, individualized consideration of applicants so that race, though important, is only one of a number of factors being considered; (d) does not unduly burden disfavored groups; and (e) is limited in time or includes a periodic review to assess its continued necessity. In Fisher, the Court clarified that this narrow tailoring determination is one that courts need to make themselves, with great care, while taking account of a university’s experience and expertise. The concept of critical mass is implicated in at least three of these factors (a, b, and e), which we address in turn below.
Skepticisms about whether a race-conscious admissions policy operates as a quota have been raised when universities argue that they need a critical mass of students to further the educational benefits of diversity. For instance, during the Grutter litigation, the University of Michigan Law School argued that it needed a critical mass of students of color in order to obtain the educational benefits of diversity. Opponents challenged the argument on the grounds that having such a goal implicated the university in targeting a specific number of students of color (i.e., a quota). The university, on the other hand, argued that the goal of critical mass was based on educational objectives for students, not a fixed number/target devoid of these considerations. In its decision, the Court agreed with the university’s position, noting that the goal of attaining a critical mass of students of color did not transform the policy into an impermissible quota. The Court stated, “the Law School defines its critical mass concept by reference to the substantial, important, and laudable educational benefits that diversity is designed to produce, including cross-racial understanding and the breaking down of racial stereotypes” (539 U.S. at 330). Thus, the Court agreed with the university’s asserted need to have meaningful numbers or a critical mass of Latino, Black, and Native American students to help diminish the impact of racial stereotyping and rejected the idea that by seeking a critical mass, the university’s policy operated as a quota. 3
Similar arguments arose in Fisher, with the petitioner Abigail Fisher calling for a definition of critical mass that involved a number and the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) countering that its definition was based on the educational conditions they believed needed to be present (or were lacking) to realize the educational benefits of diversity. The petitioner’s charge was that the lack of a quantitative definition for critical mass renders the concept amorphous and meaningless. This line of argument places postsecondary institutions in a Catch-22: if the concept is defined in reference to a number it becomes a quota, but if the concept is not a number, then the concept is too amorphous and courts cannot provide proper review of a policy that seeks to attain a critical mass, as would be required by the standard of strict scrutiny (see, e.g., Lyke, 2013; Milem, Chang, & antonio, 2005). Within these legal debates, the concept of critical mass has been defined more by what it is not (i.e., a quota) rather than what it is intended to address.
The concept of critical mass has been most clearly, albeit not entirely, defined in the context of arguments related to a university’s good-faith determinations of whether race-neutral polices are workable alternatives to race-conscious ones and an assessment of the continued necessity for the consideration of race. (These are elements (b) and (e), respectively, of the narrow tailoring inquiry.) In defending its policy, UT Austin argued that despite current levels of representation across campus (15% Latino students and about 5% Black students), 4 students of color reported feeling isolated on campus, and that Black and Latino students remained underrepresented in undergraduate classes that offered the best opportunity for cross-racial classroom interactions. The university also highlighted the fact that Black and Latino students admitted through individualized full file reviews that considered race as one of many factors brought a range of experiences that differed substantially from students of color admitted through the Top Ten Percent Plan. Specifically, the former set of students had experiences associated with attending an integrated high school (as opposed to a segregated one) and added diversity of socioeconomic backgrounds. 5 This is an objective that UT Austin called “diversity within diversity.”
Thus, UT Austin defended complementing automatic admissions under the Top Ten Percent Plan with a holistic review that allowed for the consideration of race on the grounds that it needed more broad-ranging diversity to further its institutional mission and attain the educational benefits of diversity. With these arguments, UT Austin emphasized the importance of furthering a positive racial climate on campus, attending to students’ experiences in the classroom as well as across campus, and having a diverse range of experiences from individuals within racial groups to help realize the educational benefits of diversity. These arguments are supported by social science research that points to the conditions needed for institutions to leverage the educational benefits of student body diversity and that inform an understanding of dynamic diversity.
Components of Dynamic Diversity Based on Social Science Evidence
What are the conditions that give rise to the educational benefits of diversity? And how much diversity is enough? Stated together: When is diversity “dynamic”? To shed light on these questions—which have become more urgent for institutions to be able to answer post-Fisher—we summarize research on the various factors that create and shape the synergy of environmental conditions and interpersonal interactions that gives rise to the educational benefits of diversity. 6 Social science research related to diversity demonstrates that this synergy is only realized when contextual factors of the learning environment set the stage for and facilitate productive interactions and exchanges across racial lines (Cabrera, Nora, Terenzini, Pascarella, & Hagedorn, 1999; Gurin, Nagda, & Zúñiga, 2013; Harper & Quaye, 2009; Hurtado & Carter, 1997; Hurtado, Milem, Clayton-Peterson, & Allen, 1998, 1999; Jayakumar, 2008; Milem et al., 2005; Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005). Thus, in the summary below we first outline the broader national-, state-, local-, and institutional-level conditions needed to give rise to the educational benefits of diversity, with a focus on the institutional climate.
We then discuss the parallel impediments of racial isolation and stereotypes that influence participation at the micro level of the classroom and cocurricular learning environments. We focus our review of the literature in these learning environments because research suggests that, while students’ interactions take place at various levels of the institution, including co-curricular and social environments across campus, classroom interactions take on a particular significance. In the latter, the terms of engagement (e.g., who is participating, modes of instruction, and content of discussion) are more defined, and alternative means for students to participate in the face of barriers to learning are limited. Indeed, disengagement at the classroom level has relatively more unavoidable consequences for students, whereas at the campus level, students can sometimes retreat to or create counterspaces to overcome harms of stereotypes and isolation. The final area of literature we review addresses the types and nature of interpersonal interactions necessary for promoting dynamic diversity and its educational benefits.
A Positive Racial Climate as a Critical Instigator for Productive Interactions
Research indicates that a (positive) campus racial climate—that is, community’s members’ attitudes, behaviors, and perceptions of discrimination and intergroup contact (Hurtado, Alvarez, Guillermo-Wann, Cuellar, & Arellano, 2012; Peterson & Spencer, 1990)—with particular attention to both the numbers and experiences of students of color on campus is an important factor to consider in pursuing the benefits of diversity on campus. Results from a 10-year, longitudinal, large-scale national study indicate that acquiring a positive racial climate depends on the presence of students of color in the student body (Jayakumar, 2008). Nonetheless, increasing the number of students of color on campus does not on its own result (directly) in students’ choosing to interact with people of different racial backgrounds; rather, the data demonstrate that this desired type of interaction and the subsequent long-term benefits only happen when there is numeric diversity and a positive campus racial climate (Jayakumar, 2008). Given that learning from and through diversity requires interaction, specifically, cross-racial interaction and participation, both a lacking presence of students of color and a negative racial climate can inhibit desired benefits.
Increasing the number of students of color on campus is also associated with a reduction of minority students’ perceptions of discrimination on campus (Hurtado & Ruiz, 2012). This is of particular significance because such perceptions or a negative racial climate inhibit the interactions needed to realize the educational benefits of diversity. Indeed, students who report negative racial experiences are likely to experience a lower sense of belonging in the first 2 years of college (Hurtado et al., 2007; Locks, Hurtado, Bowman, & Oseguera, 2008) and overall dissatisfaction with the college experience (Miller & Sujitparapitaya, 2010). The literature documents the adverse impact of negative climate perceptions on students of color academic adjustment and quality of engagement in all campus environments (Cabrera et al., 1999; Hurtado & Carter, 1997; Pascarella & Terenzini 2005), including the classroom environment (Quaye, Tambascia, & Talesh, 2009). Experiences of racial tension and microaggressions in the classroom and on campus shape perceptions of the racial climate (Harper & Hurtado, 2007; Hurtado, 1992; Lewis, Chesler, & Forman, 2000; McCabe, 2009). 7 For minority students in particular, students’ appraisal of the climate of academic and social environments could be a central factor in their decision to participate in various academic and social activities on their campus (Museus, Palmer, Davis, & Maramba, 2011).
Although minority students experience a more hostile racial climate than Whites (Cabrera et al., 1999; Fischer, 2010; Hurtado, 1992; Harper & Hurtado, 2007; Rankin & Reason, 2005), a negative climate compromises the growth and development of minority and majority students alike (Cabrera et al., 1999; Harper & Hurtado, 2007; Hurtado & Carter, 1997; Jayakumar, 2008; Nora & Cabrera, 1996; Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005). Thus, enrolling a racially diverse student body, though insufficient as an isolated effort, is integral to producing conditions for and enabling interactions across race that benefit all students.
Attending to Historical Legacies and Institutional Signaling
Research further indicates that to realize the educational benefits of diversity, institutions need to attend to historical legacies of exclusion and other contextual factors that shape racial climates on campuses. These include historical patterns regarding entrance of students of color, specific state and institutional contexts, and policies that signal whether students are welcome at a particular institution. Students’ educational experiences occur within a particular racial context determined by both sociohistorical forces on campus and the larger policy context, including government programs, initiatives, and the national policy landscape. The racial climate is a product of these forces and is shaped by an institution’s historical legacy and current practices of inclusion/exclusion of various racial and ethnic groups, the level of racial integration they have achieved (with particular focus on underrepresented groups who are most vulnerable to stereotypes), the quality of intergroup relations on campus, and the perceptions and attitudes between and among groups (Hurtado et al., 1999).
Indeed, most predominantly White institutions have historically excluded or limited access to students of color (Hurtado et al., 1999; Thelin, 1985) and have structures, practices, and cultures that were originally created to meet the needs of homogenous populations and segregated environments (or more specifically, affluent White male populations) (Duster, 1993; Jayakumar & Museus, 2012). These institutions are less likely to foster supportive environments and outcomes for students of color than those without a legacy of inclusion such as historically Black colleges HBCs and American Indian colleges (AICs) which started (and continue) with inclusion of historically excluded populations in both mission and organizational practice (Hurtado et al., 1999).
Current manifestations of this historical legacy are evident in resistance to desegregation efforts (Hurtado et al., 1999), persisting outcome disparities that reflect long-standing and unrecognized benefits for particular student groups (Bensimon, Hao, & Bustillos, 2006), and the absence of a comprehensive institutional approach to integration and inclusion at traditionally White institutions (Jayakumar & Museus, 2012; Milem et al., 2005). These manifestations of past exclusionary practices shape an institution’s racial climate, which is not static but rather actively molded by local contexts and by a structural and organizational dimension reflected in campus decision making and practices (Hurtado et al., 2012; Milem et al., 2005). It is also shaped by the dynamics among faculty, staff, students, and administration within the organization along social identity (Hurtado et al., 2012). Furthermore, structural features and organizational behaviors, including how diversity and equity are incorporated in the mission, goals, pedagogy, and day-to-day operations of an institution, signal an institution’s commitment to diversity and ultimately impacts how students engage with difference and their capacity to benefit from diversity in college (Hurtado et al., 2012; Milem et al., 2005). 8
In addition to influencing how students engage with difference, research suggests that an institution’s perceived commitment to diversity, which is influenced by a particular state context, can encourage or discourage minority students’ applications and enrollment. Bans on affirmative action, for example, can have a “discouragement effect” that leads students to not apply to an institution, whereas visible and effective efforts to increase the presence of people of color can signal an inclusive and welcoming environment to prospective students considering a selective institution (Brown & Hirschman, 2006; Garces, Cogburn, & McClure, 2013; Griffin, Muñiz, & Espinosa, 2012). Indeed, bans on affirmative action have led to declines in the enrollment of students of color across a number of educational programs, including selective undergraduate institutions (Hinrichs, 2012), graduate fields of study (Garces, 2013), and professions of law (Kidder, 2003) and medicine (Garces & Mickey-Pabello, 2013). Conversely, when the consideration of race in admission is permitted (as happened when Grutter overruled Hopwood v. University of Texas and lifted the ban on affirmative action in Texas), the enrollment of students of color has increased (Garces, 2012).
Attending to Impediments for Productive Interactions in Learning Environments
Social science research also clarifies the harmful effects of racial isolation and stereotype threat, connecting these harms to the undermining of cross-racial interaction, classroom participation, and thereby diminishing the positive outcomes associated with diversity. These barriers to cross-racial engagement (or participation) and their subsequent detrimental impact on productive interactions are exacerbated at the micro level of the classroom and other constructed subenvironments of curricular and cocurricular learning on a college campus. Thus, to nurture dynamic diversity, it is important to attend to the impediments for interaction that arise in these formal and informal learning settings, which require attending to the number of students of color on campus and in classroom settings.
When there is little numeric diversity, people of color are more vulnerable to social stigma (Steele, 1992) and stereotype threat 9 and are more likely to experience racial tension (Hurtado, 1992), racial microagressions, and tokenism, 10 all of which discourage participation. Notably, this vulnerability stems from the broader context of how groups are socially positioned with regard to social markers of equality (i.e., marginalized status along various dimensions of identity and broader power dynamics; Steele, 1997). Quantitative studies on stereotype threat indicate that low numeric representation of one’s own social identity group in a specific setting, whether based on gender or race, leads to dis-identification, decreased desire for participation, and lower sense of belonging among members of social identity groups who are the subject of negative stereotypes (Murphy, Steele, & Gross, 2007; Purdie-Vaughns, Steele, Davies, Ditlmann, & Crosby, 2008; Walton & Carr, 2012; Walton & Cohen, 2007; Walton & Spencer, 2009). Findings from recent qualitative studies that explore the experiences of Black males specifically (Smith, Allen, & Danley, 2007), and high achieving Black and Latino/a students, more generally (McCabe, 2009; Yosso, Smith, Ceja, & Solórzano, 2009), further illustrate this pattern.
In environments where individuals feel scrutinized and excluded, intergroup relations also suffer (Hurtado et al., 1999; Milem et al., 2005). Students in such environments are not likely to experience the “confrontation with diversity and complexity,” which Gurin, Dey, Hurtado, and Gurin (2002) demonstrated enhances cognitive and active thinking processes, stimulates developmental growth, and prepares students for life in a diverse society” (p. 334). Research focused on graduate students (e.g., Buckner, 2004; Deo, 2011) and undergraduates (e.g., McCabe, 2009; Yosso et al., 2009) alike suggests that the harms of racial isolation in the classroom compromise the educational experiences of students of color who are less likely to participate under such circumstances. A common response to racial microaggressions in the classroom consistently reported across studies was to avoid speaking in class and further distance oneself from Whites (Buckner, 2004; Deo, 2011; Lewis et al., 2000). Underrepresented and marginalized students often choose silence as an act of resistance to perceived hostile environments (Brayboy, 2004; Buckner, 2004; Deo, 2011; Lewis et al., 2000). Indeed, Deo (2011) documents instances where opportunities for lively discussion in the classroom are missed when faculty and classmates devalue diversity issues and students perceive an unwelcoming climate or tokenism, all of which decrease the expression of diverse perspectives.
Attending to the Nature of Cross-Racial Interactions
Research further illustrates another important condition for the benefits of diversity to be realized: attending to the nature of cross-racial interactions. In fact, failure to attend to the nature of cross-racial interactions and intergroup conditions, including any token inclusion of underrepresented groups, can increase racial tensions (Gurin et al., 2013). Not only are benefits stymied under such circumstances but there is also potential for negative cross-racial interactions associated with unfavorable outcomes such as reductions in civic engagement, self-confidence, and moral reasoning skills (Denson & Chang, 2010; Engberg, 2007; Hurtado, 2005; Mayhew & Engberg, 2010; Nelson Laird, 2005). Thus, understanding the types of interaction that should be nurtured is particularly important.
Cross-racial interactions contribute to student learning and growth only insofar as these encounters challenge students’ preexisting stereotypes, beliefs, and worldviews (Crisp & Turner, 2011; Gurin et al., 2002). 11 Relatively homogenous groups prevent these goals as they can foster stereotypes, racial isolation, and heightened perceived differences of students with backgrounds different from those who are not in the racial majority. Thus, attending to the nature, and quality, of cross-racial interactions is important and requires that groups are not lopsided in ways that promote stereotypes and racial isolation. 12
Rare or superficial interracial interactions are also not conducive to prejudice reduction because many people have biased judgments that result in (a) perceiving that their observations support and justify preexisting stereotypes (e.g., Berndsen, Spears, van der Pligt, & McGarty, 2002; Stroessner & Plaks, 2001), (b) attributing counter-stereotypical behavior to situational or circumstantial factors as opposed to personal characteristics (e.g., Sekaquaptewa, Espinoza, Thompson, Vargas, & von Hippel, 2003; Seta, Seta, & McElroy, 2003), and (c) rationalizing that an individual who strongly contradicts prevailing stereotypes is merely an “exception to the rule” (e.g., Hewstone & Lord, 1998; Wilder, Simon, & Faith, 1996).
Productive conditions for cross-racial interactions entail potential for discrepant and varying examples, which are more likely to take place when there is diversity of experiences among members of the same social identity group. As Kanter (1977) asserted, “If there are enough people of the token’s type to let discrepant examples occur, it is possible that the generalization will change to accommodate the accumulated cases. But if individuals of that type are only a small proportion of the group, it is easier to retain the generalization and distort perception of the token” (pp. 971–972). As noted previously, this is the objective referenced in the Fisher litigation as “diversity within diversity,” that is, students who share the same racial background, but differ on a host of other experiences, such as socioeconomic background or educational experiences.
Perceptions, attributions, and generalizations that promote stereotypes and bias can also be reduced through repeated interactions with peers from different groups (Dasgupta & Asgari, 2004; Hewstone & Brown, 1986; Seta et al., 2003) and (as outlined in the prior section) requires more than token numbers in classroom discussions. Research shows that frequency of positive cross-racial interactions (e.g., studying, dining, socializing, or having serious discussions across racial groups) is more strongly related to student outcomes than is the overall frequency of cross-racial interactions (Denson & Chang, 2010; Hurtado, 2005; Nelson Laird, 2005).
In the most comprehensive study of intergroup dialogue to date, Gurin and her colleagues (2013) examined the experiences of 1,450 students enrolled in 52 dialogue courses and control groups using randomized experimental design and mixed methods. Intergroup dialogues focused on the topics of racial or gender inequalities and included an equal number of participants from two different identity groups. Findings demonstrate that cross-racial interactions effectively led to greater intergroup understanding, positive interactions and emotions, and intergroup collaborations when there was structured, facilitated, and sustained intergroup dialogue highlighting similarities and differences across the groups that were equally represented as participants in the classes.
Dynamic Diversity and a Contextual Understanding of Critical Mass
The summary above shows that dynamic diversity (or the concept of critical mass) cannot be reduced to a number that is devoid of other contextual determinations, as numbers alone do not produce educational benefits. Achieving the educational benefits of diversity depends on a symbiotic relationship between the environment and students; while the percentage of students of color plays a significant role in shaping the campus climate and culture, the campus climate and culture, in turn, influence whether students feel welcome to attend the institution and their experiences while on campus. Furthermore, the environment and the differential experiences are shaped by the institution’s legacy of discrimination and exclusionary practices to date, organizational features such as institutional signaling about commitment to diversity, and the broader social context, which includes local demographics, levels of segregation, and local indicators of inequality. An answer to the question “How much diversity is enough?” or “When is diversity ‘dynamic’?” requires one to consider the symbiotic relationship among these factors.
The facts in Fisher provide one specific example of how the consideration of the symbiotic relationship among these factors may inform an institution’s determination of whether it has achieved dynamic diversity. As we noted previously, UT Austin argued that the institution had not achieved critical mass despite current levels of representation across campus (15% Latino students and roughly 5% Black students). This determination was made in a state/local context where Latinos and Blacks make up about 38% and 12%, respectively, of the population, and where pathways to leadership positions for Latinos are notably lacking (Brief of National Latino Organizations as Amici Curiae). At the institutional level, moreover, students of color felt isolated (indicating a negative racial climate) and were not present in small undergraduate classes and in various graduate classes (signaling impediments for cross-racial interactions). The institution, moreover, noted concerns over lingering effects of state-mandated segregation policies through 1969 and its subsequent years of discriminatory practices against Blacks and Latinos (Brief for Respondents). These contextual factors can be considered together to support a determination that critical mass is lacking. In a different state, local, and institutional context—where pathways to leadership are visibly open (e.g., the presence of certain groups in leadership roles are not grossly discrepant with state demographics), legacies of exclusion are not ongoing, students of color experience a positive racial climate, and opportunities for productive cross-racial interactions are present—the same level of representation may be sufficient to foster dynamic diversity.
All these factors demonstrate that dynamic diversity is contextual, interdependent, participatory, and cross-racial. Dynamic diversity is contextual because it requires an understanding of the conditions needed for meaningful interactions and participation. These contexts cut across national, state, campus, classroom, and interpersonal levels as well as time and space—from historical to current sociopolitical contexts. Dynamic diversity is interdependent because the key institutional components that enable it—the number of students of color on campus and particularly members of historically underrepresented groups, the campus climate, and the classroom climate for participation—continuously shape and are shaped by one another in a cyclical reaction. Dynamic diversity is cross-racial because it is defined by productive interactions across race at the individual and institutional (intergroup relations) levels. It is participatory because it is characterized by participation that engages group members’ full selves with conditions that promote equal status contact. When the nature of cross-racial interaction allows for full participation, it triggers dynamic diversity by activating more lively discussion, challenge to prior understandings/convictions, stereotypes, greater potential for innovation, and expanded range of perspectives and solutions.
A more contextual understanding of critical mass does not render the concept amorphous, as has been implied in the legal debate. Although the conditions and benefits associated with dynamic diversity are context dependent and complex in nature, institutions can understand and assess whether the conditions necessary for fostering productive cross-racial interactions and benefits are present in their educational ecosystems. Guided by lessons from social science evidence, they can (a) nurture a positive racial climate on campus, (b) address historical legacies of exclusion and institutional signaling related to the value of diversity, (c) attend to the impediments for productive interactions in formal and informal learning environments, and (d) foster the type of cross-racial interactions that challenge preexisting stereotypes in these learning spaces. Attending to all of these factors and the fluid relationship with the number of students of color on campus requires attention to the macro- (state and local conditions related to segregation, open pathways to leadership), meso- (institutional), and micro- (major/discipline, classroom, and cocurricular spaces) level elements that set the stage for productive interactions—dynamic diversity—and lead to educational benefits.
Implications for Institutions and the Legal Debate
As litigation continues in this area, we hope the analysis in this article can help illuminate the path forward on questions of critical mass, so that courts can understand the complex, nuanced, and localized determinations that creating the conditions necessary to foster dynamic diversity entails. This will require lawyers and institutions to work together to generate the evidence necessary to assess whether the conditions that foster dynamic diversity are present at the institution. Although attending to the number of students of color on campus is important for creating the conditions for dynamic diversity on campus, so too will conducting periodic institutional assessments. This can be done through quantitative and qualitative measurement tools (e.g., online surveys, focus group interviews) of (a) the campus racial climate and (b) the conditions for interactions across race, including the experiences of students of color in classrooms and other campus environments, and the interactions among various racial and ethnic subgroups on campus (see, e.g., Hurtado, Griffin, Arellano, & Cuellar, 2008). Institutions can gauge their progress toward achieving these conditions for fostering dynamic diversity by periodically assessing whether it exhibits disparities in outcomes by race on important equity indicators such as retention rates (see, e.g., Bensimon, 2004, 2005, on The Diversity Scorecard assessment tool). These assessments will allow institutions, and in turn lawyers, to develop a record of evidence to inform the legal determinations in a strict scrutiny analysis and enable judges to assess—in a manner that cannot be divorced from the contextual determinations on which it depends—whether the institution has achieved dynamic diversity.