UVA changes Common App after affirmative action ban
The University of Virginia has removed from its application form indicators of a prospect’s race, ethnicity and legacy status, while adding essay prompts that will allow candidates to discuss those factors in the context of their personal experiences.
The modifications, which University President James E. Ryan (Law ’92) and Provost Ian Baucom announced in August, follow the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in June banning affirmative action in college admissions.
“We will follow the law. We also will do everything within our legal authority to recruit and admit a class of students who are diverse across every possible dimension and to make every student feel welcome and included here at UVA,” Ryan and Baucom said in their statement.
The addition of new essay prompts to UVA’s Common Application makes use of a narrow opening Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. provided in his 6-3 majority opinion in companion cases against Harvard College and the University of North Carolina. At the end of his ruling, he allowed that applicants could discuss “how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.” But, he wrote, the reference “must be tied to that student’s unique ability to contribute to the university,” insisting colleges must treat the student “as an individual—not on the basis of race.”
The University leaders said UVA would provide the opportunity for candidates to expound on such formative experiences, “including experiences of race or ethnicity” and how they “have shaped their individual abilities to contribute.”
There will also be an essay prompt for legacies who wish “to describe their relationship with the University and how those experiences have prepared them to contribute as individuals,” they said. It’s intended to be broad enough to encourage other students to discuss their special relationships to UVA too, including potentially the descendants of UVA’s enslaved laborers.
The Harvard-UNC ruling didn’t take up the propriety of legacy admissions, but it was an issue throughout the litigation and has become hotter in its aftermath. The U.S. Department of Education recently announced a civil rights investigation into Harvard’s use of the practice, which critics say perpetuates the racial imbalances of the previous generation. Some colleges and universities have ended the preference, citing the move as a race-neutral means to advance diversity following the affirmative action ban.
UVA’s announcement said its application readers will no longer see checkboxes indicating whether a prospect has an alumni parent. If candidates consider it an important part of who they are, they’re encouraged to discuss it in their essays.
“At the most basic level, our goal remains doing our best to understand each applicant as a person, and to evaluate the unique path that led them to apply to UVA,” Ryan and Baucom said.