Affirmative action was banned in California, Texas, Washington, and Florida in the 1990s. Following this early wave, additional states banned the practice, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, and Oklahoma. In response to concerns about underrepresented minorities’ falling college enrollment in flagship public universities, administrators and policymakers took a variety of steps to mitigate these declines. This article assesses the long-run changes in the racial and ethnic composition of selected universities after these bans. We find that the elimination of affirmative action has led to persistent declines in the share of underrepresented minorities among students admitted to and enrolling in public flagship universities in these states. These results imply that alternative policies and administrative decisions were unable to fully replace race-based affirmative action. Furthermore, we show that the antecedent conditions have only modestly improved in recent decades, suggesting that policymakers and administrators need to focus on improving these conditions.

中文翻译：

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公立大学采取平权行动禁令后，代表性不足的长期变化

1990年代在加利福尼亚，德克萨斯州，华盛顿和佛罗里达州禁止采取平权行动。在此浪潮过后，包括亚利桑那州，乔治亚州，密歇根州，内布拉斯加州，新罕布什尔州和俄克拉荷马州在内的其他州也禁止了这种做法。为了回应对代表性不足的少数民族在旗舰公立大学中大学入学率下降的担忧，管理人员和政策制定者采取了各种措施来缓解这些下降。本文评估了这些禁令之后某些大学的种族和族裔组成的长期变化。我们发现，取消平权行动导致这些州被招收和就读于公立旗舰大学的学生中，代表性不足的少数群体的比例持续下降。这些结果表明，替代政策和行政决定无法完全取代基于种族的平等权利行动。此外，我们表明，前几个条件在最近几十年中仅得到了适度的改善，这表明决策者和管理者需要集中精力改善这些条件。