Institutional Consequences of the Black Lives Matter Movement: Towards Diversity in Elite Education
| Published date | 01 November 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14789299221132428 |
| Author | Mathis Ebbinghaus,Sihao Huang |
| Date | 01 November 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Early Results |
https://doi.org/10.1177/14789299221132428
Political Studies Review
2023, Vol. 21(4) 847 –856
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/14789299221132428
journals.sagepub.com/home/psrev
Institutional Consequences
of the Black Lives Matter
Movement: Towards Diversity
in Elite Education
Mathis Ebbinghaus1 and Sihao Huang2
Abstract
In the wake of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, racial disparities in elite educational
attainment have received widespread attention. Universities expressed their commitment to
racial diversity, but university policies aimed at rectifying historic disadvantages were also met
with criticism. Critics expressed concerns that efforts to achieve racial equity would disadvantage
academically successful Asian students. With this article, we examine how Black and Asian student
representation has changed over time. Time series enrolment data show a continuing increase in the
representation of Black students at elite universities following Black Lives Matter protests. Medical
school enrolment saw a similar trend of increased representation of Black students. Contrary to
concerns that Asian student representation has declined as a result of growing enrolment rates
of Black students, we observe a steady increase in the representation of Asian students alongside
increases in the representation of Hispanic students over the past decade. Black Lives Matter
coincided with increased Black enrolment in highly selective universities, without affecting broader
trends towards greater representation of minority students.
Keywords
social movements, protest, Black Lives Matter, movement outcomes, university admissions,
diversity
Accepted: 16 September 2022
Calls for diversity in elite education abound. Following the Black Lives Matter (BLM)
protests in 2020, hundreds of universities expressed their commitment to campus equity
efforts with the aim of increasing the representation of historically disadvantaged minor-
ities (Wesley et al., 2021). We assess whether these promises have translated into greater
enrolment rates among Black students. We then evaluate concerns that academically
successful Asian students were negatively affected by university policies intended to
1Nuffield College and Department of Sociology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
2Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
Corresponding author:
Mathis Ebbinghaus, Nuffield College and Department of Sociology, University of Oxford, OX1 2JD, UK.
Email: mathis.ebbinghaus@sociology.ox.ac.uk
1132428PSW0010.1177/14789299221132428Political Studies ReviewEbbinghaus and Huang
research-article2022
Early Result
To continue reading
Request your trial