 Hi, my name is to Sean card. I'm a policy analyst on the higher education team here at New America. Two cases currently sit with SCOTUS student for fair mission versus Harvard College and student for fair mission versus the University of North Carolina, which could likely ban colleges and universities from considering race and their missions process. If SCOTUS decides to overturn affirmative action, we can expect to see many damaging and revealing effects throughout the higher education system and other public institutions here in New America. We acknowledge that we are not experts on affirmative action. However, we are dedicated to making higher education more equitable and accountable for those fighting for inclusion rather than exclusion. So everyone can obtain an affordable high quality education. Therefore, we are very committed to using our platform to uplift those with deep expertise and knowledge to raise awareness and speak and spark cohesive dialogue on creating future policies to ensure that higher education institutions are a guiding light in embracing diversity, equity, and inclusion. I want to introduce Dr. Oyan Poon who's a visiting scholar at the University of Maryland at College Park. She has done a lot of research and amazing work around race and higher education. Don't want to speak too much because I want to give her the floor to talk about her work and why she's interested in being in this particular policy space. Thank you Dishon. Hi everyone. I'm Oyan Poon, as Dishon mentioned, and I have long been doing work on the racial politics of college admissions and also how college admissions and enrollment management work because very few people actually know how things work and so I am concerned quite a bit about the public discourse and how we talk about college going and college access. Because it's hard to have those conversations in a serious way when most people don't understand how these systems and structures work to produce inequalities by race, ethnicity, class, gender, and many other dimensions. I have gotten the question quite a bit sometimes about why I do the work I do and the research and analysis that I do and there's two areas of my work that are informed by my previous life as a student affairs professional in higher education and someone who worked on college recruitment and retention work in California after Proposition 209 which was that state ban that was voted on in 1996 and went into place in 1998. So I was working with particularly Asian American and Pacific Islander students at the University of California at Davis in the early 2000s. So this was after the state affirmative action ban there. What I noticed was deep inequalities between who was attending college among a very diverse Asian American and Pacific Islander population, almost no Pacific Islanders were in attendance southeast Asian Americans had very low numbers after the affirmative action ban, and also low income Asian Americans were not very well represented. Yet, the university and in general I think people don't quite understand how to talk about these very diverse populations and make meaning and sense of it. And so I was very interested in these questions I was also an admissions reader post Proposition 209 in California at the university and learned a lot about the how admissions works and doesn't work right and prior to that work I didn't realize the complexities and the thoughtfulness and the norms that are put in place and how to do that work oftentimes people simplify oversimplify and flatten how this work is done. And again that goes back to how we talk about these issues is very malnourished. And. Yeah, and so I'm very interested in noting, especially as someone who grew up in the 80s in Boston the daughter of immigrants working class immigrants. My family of Chinese Americans were very much like yeah for my faction it's it's an anti racist policy. Of course we're supportive of it but you know more recently we've seen a lot of media reports of Chinese Americans and other Asian Americans. There's this image of people that I identify with being opposed to this policy and it didn't make sense it didn't track with my experiences growing up. And so, I'm known for doing a study doing research on why are Asian Americans billing the different ways that they do about race conscious admissions and affirmative action policies. I've also done work on contracting because quite frankly the history of affirmative action is not in college admissions. It is in employment and public contracting. And I have done research on public contracting in Asian Americans, small businesses, and it was very difficult to find any Asian American opposed to affirmative action in that space. So these things don't track for me and so what I have found over time is that the folks that keep popping up in mainstream media as Asians opposed to affirmative action quote unquote, it's a very small number. Among Asian Americans so there's this mythology out there that people like me are opposed to affirmative action that's absolutely not the case. But also there's a fear, right, just to kind of like empathize with the people who are, you know, fighting tooth and nail against race conscious admissions. What I found in my research is that there's a fear in not knowing what exactly is happening and so that's the second strand of my research is how exactly does admissions work in colleges and universities. So that's, that's a very power laden process but I've never once found that, that there is an anti Asian motive to this work at all, particularly given the history of various court cases leading up to this moment we're in. Thank you for sharing I was like, all the points you hit I was like wow I was like when you talked about Davis I was like, hold on that's my undergrad. I was like yes I was like and I also was at one point admissions reader to so I was like on that other side reading. Yeah and I'm like it's so interesting to like see all the components that go in. Yeah, SRRC. Yes, yeah, yeah. Ace the I don't know if around that time, but I was a volunteer like all those like those those core programs. It's probably the reason I'm able to talk to you today like being actually in front of you to talk about these issues because of how important it is to have those resources on campus. And also like you said earlier to about a friend of action it wasn't the start of education, it goes back to employment. I think I kind of want to get into a little bit more about that definition a little bit more with you. So yeah Washington post sharp school, they recently you know surveyed the general public about their views on race being considered in the missions process. And in that poll about 70% disapproved of race being considered in the college mission process, but 70% appreciate programs that helps increase diversity on college campuses. So I'm just like, what is the disconnect between the general public and basically the definition of affirmative action. Absolutely. I mean I think this is a perfect example of when you're talking to a researcher so I'm going to say research design survey design is a very important thing to think through and connecting it to what's actually happening right so I think the responses that the paradox is conflict between people saying, no we're not okay with race being considered versus 70% also saying, yeah, we support increasing diversity is a couple of things one first and foremost, it's how was the question asked. That matters a lot in survey methodology, and particularly around this work, I would like to lift up the work of my political scientist colleagues at API data in particular they've been doing work around holding Asian Americans in particular personally in various languages because we know Asian Americans are a majority immigrant population. And so they use different languages but they've tested out different questions. Right and interestingly, when you ask Asian Americans in that survey, do you support affirmative action a policy that uplifts I can't remember the exact wording but it was basically that uplifts black and women applicants. 70% of Asian American respondents said yes, agree or strongly agree. Right and so it's really interesting to see this kind of dynamic in the survey question. If the survey question here in this Washington post char school poll had asked like, how do you feel about race being considered it's not clear about to what ends right. API data survey question said do you prove of affirmative action, you know what how do you feel about affirmative action do you agree with a policy that combats sexism and right like so it's it and anti black racism right like it's it's very specific to what ends right because particularly when you're talking about people of color, you've got a long history of our racial identities being used against us. Right. And that's a different objective than for diversity so I would wonder if these two questions were combined and asked in a way that is like, how do you feel about or do you approve of race being considered to increase diversity. Right so combine those two questions. I have a question of like how would people respond. Right and perhaps survey methodologists and I'm not one to be clear would be like well that's mixing things fine then do it the other way to, you know, try it out a couple of different ways and I think that's perfectly fine research wise. But I think most of the polls that I've seen that don't think deeply about race and racial discourses, you can get into this kind of thing here. Thank you for sharing on that because I was like, we need to have more dialogue around what the actual definition mean. And, you know, the importance of increasing diversity. When it comes to college admissions like I think people are convoluting things. What is diversity mean. Yeah, what is yeah what is diversity like what what does that mean and that means that can mean very different to a lot of different people. So it's, you have to be very specific and also get right to the point and like you said about survey methodology, especially when you're surveying certain communities you have to be mindful of who you're going to be with the language so yeah, uplifting that point that is good. Want to shift gears. Because you probably have seen in the news with certain states, thinking about Florida and Texas about their DI efforts, are their actions a precursor to what we might see unfold nationwide and affirmative action is overturned. And what is that stake for higher education institutions and their current DI efforts. The first question. Are these anti DI efforts, a precursor to what we're going to see post Supreme Court ruling in these SFFA cases. I hope not. It doesn't have to be to be clear. However, I also know that the same people who are in this goes back to the previous question about misunderstandings of what is it that the public actually wants. Right. So I don't, I think SFFA was led by Ed Blum, not an Asian person, a white man who has been trying to gut civil rights laws throughout his entire life, including the voting rights law, including he's been trying to attack immigrant voting rights. And now this is his next piece. He recognizes that people don't understand admissions. He recognizes people don't understand how to talk about Asian Americans in race. And he recognizes that people generally don't like the Harvard's of the world. Let's be real, right like Harvard is an elitist name. And so, with those three things in mind he was very strategic in attacking Harvard. He was supported by the same people who are pushing for these anti DEI things. Which is why when he files every one of these SFFA lawsuits you will find a line towards the end of the legal complaints that says what they're after they're not going to get it in this SFFA rulings the rulings this time around. I don't think, however, they make very clear what they want in their long game, which is the end of the use of race and all educational settings. That should sound very familiar and pretty much what we're seeing in Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, and other states with book banning, etc. They want to keep people ignorant. And fearful, right, rather than allowing people to come together and unify for a better society, right, a more mutually diverse collective solidarity like what Mahathir McGee has talked about for a solidarity dividend. As long as we stay afraid and apart and separate and in conflict with each other, then out of ignorance then the powerful remain in control. Right. So, is it a precursor we know it comes from the same rotten soil. Both of these things, these lawsuits against these universities for wanting to consider my whole story what does it mean for me how has racism, not necessarily my identity racism how has racism affected my experiences and who I am today. Right. And that can be many different ways for a lot of different people. And yes, in fact racism does affect white people too. Right. Like, it's it's a thing in the water in the air in the everything we do. racism and so to tell universities you can't even think about this and who you decide to bring in, you can, it becomes the humanizing to people in our stories and who we are. If that played a big role in who we are. Right. And that's part of how it works. It's not a checkbox. Right. In admissions or employment or contracting is not a checkbox and saying like here's extra points, you get extra awarded, but that's not how it works at all. It is understanding the Sean who are you as a person what do you bring right sometimes I'll say, you know, 1100. What do you know about me from that number, you know nothing about me from that number. Right you don't know the kinds of talents I bring and that's what a multi racial democracy needs is all kinds of talents for solving all kinds of problems. And that's what I always conscious admissions has been doing to this point. And so I think there are more people who are suspicious of anti DEI work, I think I hope I don't know, but you can't be against those anti DEI things. And against affirmative action at the same time that's that doesn't work. But what I really want to say is, is this a precursor was your initial question. It doesn't have to be if we can come together and like get clear on what our values are, regardless of what the Supreme Court rules in this coming month. Our values can still stay the same. Our values. The court cannot change what I value. Period. Right. So, as a higher ed researcher as a thinker as a citizen of a multi racial democracy I care about learning about the complicated world around a solving problems together. Right and so is ending DEI efforts at stake in higher education. Yes, it doesn't have to be. But it is at stake. Sadly, and I think people need to be courageous in leading our institutions and our states to say. Yeah, racism is a problem and we need to learn. We need to figure out how to solve these big problems and shutting down that learning is not how we do it. You can't solve cancer you can't cure cancer by pretending. It's not a thing by telling people you can't learn about it. That makes zero sense to me. No, you're right. You're right. We're all right you're right to all that. Yeah, because like people want to sweep these issues under the rug. And when it comes to the I as like my whole thinking is like, it's, it's more than just emissions. Like, we want to make sure that we bring people into the institutions who for starters, like, as someone who identifies as a woman of color as a black woman. When it comes to like having access to health care and you know, you want someone that looks like you at these institutions or you want a doctor that represents you or has you know cultural linguistic, you know the same identity as you and I think people are like in that bigger picture of what this is going to look like. And then also going back to the DI efforts on campus is like, you're focused on getting the students there but then when they get there they need those resources to keep them there and achieve that success. And that's kind of like the bigger picture of these DI efforts I'm like, y'all focus on getting them in but then the institution wants to also not take care of them when they get there. So that's a whole nother mantra that I could probably go down the road with you all day to is about that. So thank you for sharing and thinking I kind of want to get into the policy side of this, because I like you mentioned earlier, you know California has already banned affirmative action in Michigan, but both of them have already, you know, have mentioned in some of the amicus breeze to by saying like, yeah, this is not working for us. And we're seeing a lot of decreased enrollment, you know from black, brown students of color at all at our public university and our selected institutions. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on maybe what we can actually learn from these states and what should federal policy makers know. And are there any California Michigan policy that you might be aware of that could be remarkable for federal for the federal policy arena to just ensure diversity is embraced and valued appropriately. Great question and I think there's a lot we can learn from those two states in terms of what and what can be done after a ban. What that means. I think both states and there's I think there's eight states total that have bands on their books. California Michigan get talked about a lot because California Michigan and they have very, you know, attention grabbing public universities flagship universities. That said, and they still collect a lot of data. Right California, as an example, has probably more detailed data collection than than the federal government requires. And as someone who was an admissions reader and worked on retention issues at UC Davis in California under a ban. The data was still asked for in the admissions applications it was optional, as are these these demographic questions are always optional. Students want to say who they are let them say who they are. As an admissions reader, I didn't see who you know that box. Why, in what students talked about, they talked about their experiences and quite frankly oftentimes it was racialized experiences. Sometimes it wasn't right like it just wasn't a part of their stories and that's fine it doesn't you don't get penalized one way or the other. And I think it was important to understand these students and who they were right as an example Sally Chen Chinese American woman from San Francisco went to Harvard testified in the SFFA case, or the side of Harvard for diversity. And she said, you know, her high school counselor told her not to talk about her identity not to check off a box. But what she found out was, because her leadership and her engagement in her community, and her accomplishments had so much to do with being engaged in her community as a Chinese American woman. The Harvard admissions committee looked on that favorably. Right. And so in her, you know, and there were other Asian students who testified to that as well, you couldn't fully understand who Sally was without that information so she went against what some people told her to do. And as a reader at UC Davis, I think I would have done the same like okay this is this person's story is about community engagement, leadership, etc. Right and there's a first and foremost academically solid right like period. She wasn't getting in because of her story she was getting in because of her academic profile first and foremost and then the other pieces were just kind of fleshing out who she was giving us a bigger detailed picture. So I think that I'm hearing right now some universities are saying, Oh, our common app for example just announced today that they were giving universities the option not to receive the demographic data. And I think that's a mistake. And that's a huge mistake. For a couple of reasons, because the other piece is what places like California continue to do is in my work as a retention person. I was constantly looking at the data in terms of progress towards degree. Right and the state of California had accountability measures in place for time to college degree completion. Right so they were holding universities accountable. But if I don't know what's happening on my campus in terms of where the bumps and dips and how do I invest my public tax dollar resources into serving the students I have on campus. If I don't have race and ethnicity data class data language spoken at home data. You know, more data is more helpful to be honest. And so to figure out then how do I invest my dollars towards towards supporting different students needs and different students interest perfect example. Like 20 years ago when I was at UC Davis there was no Asian American. There was like one or two Asian American counselors in the counseling and caps counseling and something services. Right out of like a staff of like 30 or 40. And that campus at the time was 40% almost 40% Asian American. And almost no Asian Americans were attending going to utilize those services. And in the three years I was there there were several students suicides of or suicide attempts as well among Asian American students. And the police were targeting Southeast Asian men. And right like there's just all these traumas that we're not getting served. Right. And so students were like hey, this is not okay. Also, there's no one on campus and student affairs that identifies as working with American Indian and native needs. Also right like all these things right and so how do you serve the students on your campus if you don't know who's there. You know who's there and what their needs are. Right. They've already proven themselves academically qualified. Right. And so, what do you do. How do you do this. Right. How do you spend my art our public tax dollars to support the students on our campus. I'm scared that there are institutions that think that they can't even have those data anymore. And that's not true. And learning from Michigan and California you can't. You absolutely can and you need to. And I think you have a moral obligation to do so. The other thing that I noticed in California was and we talked about this earlier right to Sean is the student recruitment retention center. The history of, you know, post proposition 209 post affirmative action ban in California students came together, created a movement and said, we still care about this so we're going to tax ourselves. They answered they voted on fees to say we need to fund student efforts supported by professional staff. To do outreach and recruitment and the return and the peer to peer retention work on campus right and so you mentioned ace right. What worked a lot was safe which was the Southeast Asian Southeast Asians for education, and I'm blanking on other it's been a long time to shine what were the other ones. I was gonna say it's been a long time for me to I know there was one for the child community to that I can't I cannot think of and I had a friend who worked who worked directly. I should know this because I spent majority of my undergrad career at the SRC. And then now things have expanded on that particular campus to because now, like a lot of communities have their own resource center. My last year and undergrad, you know, the black community got a resource center, then other communities started to get their own because we all were like hey, we need more than just the SRC we need other things to so I love this generational connection here. Student Affairs Officer and Asian American Studies and we came on board, along with the Native American Studies SAO, and there was an African American Studies SAO and a Chicano Studies SAO. You know, and, you know, and then I went back to grad school at UCLA and they have a whole built they had a whole building before Davis had a whole building. But these were all student movement to this lead efforts that were really targeting racial equity. Right. So, these are things that happened after from an action bands. I think folks need to not freak out and remember that these are possible. UC Davis Medical School, I think just got cited as one of them med schools with the most black students outside of an HBCU. And it's, it's rather comparable in terms of the numbers and I'm like something's happening. Right. In really good ways to recognize talent. Right. Before anyone out there who's friends with that bloom is going to say like oh they're lowering standards. No, no, absolutely not. Wow. Thank you for sharing that and, like I said I have a little bit of hope about you know how institutions can move forward if looking at some of what California Michigan have done. And again, like the data piece. So, so important as someone who used to work in evaluation and whole and loves data, and how important it is. I hope and continue that universities and institutions can have act like create some type of mechanism or structures to input that in place and I'm still mind ball mind boggled by what Common App just recently released. I'm going to have to look into that later because I'm like wait a minute that's, that's not okay. Let's see it on their website but someone just shared this New York Times article with me so that would be. Yeah, thank you for sharing. Yeah. Now moving into a little bit more of, I know we were talking about some hope so we kind of are we're talking about a little bit of hope and, you know, some hopefully was unfolding after how most likely it's going to be, I mean of course it's going to be June 30 when we hear the decision. But what would you like the general public just to take away from what is unfolding, you know what is one hope. And what is something you actually fear about the upcoming decision. This is existential questions right here. You know this is going to sound real cheesy, but my daughter is eight years old, and she's in sec she's finishing up second grade this month, and I, and I feel like here's the typical gen X or saying the future generations are the hope after we have ruined everything as my daughter tells me. But truly, I'm constantly inspired and hopeful that, you know, the folks who are younger than me that we can work together across generationally, because there's so much brilliance. Like, my, like, the fact that my daughter is asking me questions, starting when she was three. I don't know how their parents do this, and why they're trying to do this anti DEI stuff in schools or anti, like doing book bans. I don't know how they deal with the questions there, they, I know they're getting questions as a parent kids kids ask questions that's their job. Right. And sorry about that thing. I thought I turned it off. Um, but kids ask questions, right and some of the questions my kids started asking me when she was three was if we're not black and we're not white. What are we, wait, you're telling me we're Asian American, that's not a color. So help me understand that ratio is three. I mean, those weren't exactly the words couldn't even say Asian American she said Asian come American. And she was like, Oh, we're Thai and Chinese that's also not a color. Ah, how do I help you understand it three years old color and race and racism and xenophobia and all these other things in this world that you're going to have to deal with. Um, I think young people asking questions and pushing those questions and figuring out and learning intergenerationally and how to push back like what it means to actually do something material around it. You know, I'm seeing like, for another example, you know the the March for our lives group right those young people are elevating. I mean, we have a long ways to go around gun safety, but they're changing around along with like moms for, you know, and control those groups like they're changing the way we talk about it we don't talk about gun control we talk about gun safety now which now. Um, but you know it's advancing the dialogue and post, you know, George Floyd and the BLM movement like I think these are important things that we need to keep moving on and keep iterating on and so I still feel hopeful there. Even, even assuming that the Supreme Court is going to rule in a way that further restricts understanding us as people as whole human beings. And recognize, you know, I still hold a hope that in ashes we can still rise right like when things get burned down that it can still be fire can still be generative. And so we have to figure out the generative piece. The fears that we just fall apart. It's just, but we can't have nine people decide the fate of this country, right like decide it just. That's my fear, right is that we're just going to fall apart and cry in a corner forever. But that's not what we do as people, right. As long as our communities are connected enough and we can keep building on it, I think that at a certain point you finish crying, and you figure it out, and you come together and that's my hope to is that in that burning down of stuff we can figure out how it's going to be more powerful, because at the end of the day, you know this week was also the Thomas Jefferson lawsuit and the fourth circuit. On the one hand in higher education, you know, SFFA is saying race conscious is unconstitutional, their friends at Pacific Legal Foundation are saying race neutral things are not okay either. What is it right and we keep playing if we keep this is my fears that we try to keep playing in response. Right, that we start we keep trying to transform starting at this point, when really the game is rigged, and we're not we need to, we need to just that we'll figure this out finally collectively and say like, okay, let's think real generic like real big, real big. How do we go pay. And how do we backwards plan that and get going on things. Now that's that's good. It was like, we're going to get there, we're going to get there, we're going to get there. I mean you calling me was hope right I'm like, oh new America you know like you're worried now to okay. I was like we're going to get there some way somehow. It's probably going to take a while because the stuff that's build up has taken forever. So to tear it all down is going to take a while to the work we're going to get there, eventually. So thank you. And my last question. Because it's where we're at new America we're so federally policy focused and given our location just being in Washington DC. And you know what would you like Congress and the White House to know about the fallout in front of action is overturned. And yeah what, what can Congress do to maintain improved access for students of color. That's a funding issue right when you think about the ecosystem of higher education in this country we don't really have a national system. There's a few federal levers right you've got, you've got federal financial aid Pell grants subsidized unsubsidized loan systems. Forgiveness which is also on the docket. And cancellation rather than forgiveness because I already paid my stuff okay. I already paid it all back and more than once. So cancel it already. But right so what are the other levers. MSI funding HBCU TCU MSI funding right. Research dollars. Right, so I'm sure there's some other things of course, but thinking about those things right we know that we know that the great majority of people who go to college don't go to colleges that need to reject people. Right, so a lot of this conversation with Harvard and UNC, you're talking about a very small slice of the college going population. And you're also talking about institutions that are very well resourced, very wealthy, a friend of mine Marie bigam called them. And she called it a hedge fund. Those universities are hedge funds with country clubs attached. Right, like the funding inequalities. Right, it is not. We need to tackle this problem of where the majority of students are going and most of them are students of color are going to institutions that are not well funded. Right. And so how do we think about the finance model, the ecosystem of funding. How do we invest in HBCUs and tribal colleges and universities and other MSI minority serving institutions. Right, these are some of the institutions that are, you know, these are major institutions that serve a whole lot of students. Right, the majority of students. You know, on the I know you asked about federal but you know I'm thinking back to the state level to some some states have put caps on out of state admissions and enrollment like California. So, but again that goes back to the financing model right because why were states accepting out of status to their public flagships. Because they needed some form of revenue if the state was to divest from them. Right, so how do we. Is there a federal lever to reconfigure recalibrate what goes to higher education because, you know, in some states, a lot of states, the states fund prisons at a much higher level. Then they do public higher education. How start there. Right like can we, is there a federal accountability something or rather to help out in this regard around the financing models. Mm hmm. Yeah. Mm hmm, about the financing of how we fund our education systems and the school to prison pipeline is another something to be talked about. Yeah, be it cross sector conversation. The criminal justice conversation. Mm hmm. Everyone has has siloed themselves into certain policy areas and reality they all intersect with each other at the end of the day. Because I bet you if you traced 50 states and funding and in public education and in prison systems. It's going like this. Right, I don't know. You know what I mean, right. Mm hmm. Going up. Okay. So the K through 12 system. That's another, probably another conversation for another day about how that's going to impact the way how the K through 12 system operates but again, thank you. Thank you so much for for sharing your thoughts, your knowledge and the amazing work you have been doing. I'm really excited to take a look at your policy area now I'm look and now I'm like even not now I'm even silently you into this post this policy here but just again just want to say thank you so much on behalf of me and my team. I'm at New America. We appreciate you so much. And yeah, hope everyone tunes in and watches this conversation and take away something hopefully take away a nice good hefty dinner. Because a lot of good points were were definitely brought up. And thank you so much. I'm so excited to have this conversation with you. Thank you.