Is ‘trauma shorthand for Blackness’ in college admissions? Report sparks debate

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A recent interview published by NPR appeared to suggest that people working in college admissions look for keywords that will help them identify Black students.

An April 25 NPR episode entitled, “In college admission, trauma is shorthand for Blackness,” on “Code Switch,” a show that concentrates on racial identity issues, host Gene Demby spoke with former Georgetown University admissions officer Aya Waller-Bey about how admissions officers try to find Black students without violating the law.

Demby said the conversation centered on “How admissions essays are used to help colleges bring in the type of students that they want, how in the wake of affirmative action being struck down by the Supreme Court, that still revolves in a lot of ways around race, and what all that tells us about the kind of diversity that is seen as valuable and visible in the elite spaces.”

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Due to the 2023 Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard case, in which the Supreme Court ruled that using race as a factor in college admissions is a violation of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, Waller-Bey said that colleges are looking for other words to identify Black students.

During the conversation, Demby asked, “How do we know that they’re metabolizing in the ways you’re talking about?”

“Yeah, that’s an interesting question,” Waller-Bey responded. “I mean, I think, increasingly so universities have to really be mindful of their institutional priorities right now because of the constraints placed on by the federal administration.”

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“So I think identities such as first-gen and low-income are actually becoming incredibly important,” she added. “I think admissions officers and universities are trying to figure out how to mark students in the process. How can we identify students? How could we categorize them in ways that are, like, compliant and, like, constitutional? You know, because they…”

Demby interjected, agreeing, “Right, they won’t get you, like…” to which Waller-Bey responded, “Sued.”

Waller-Bey continued saying that college admissions staff are trying to look for other ways to find Black students.

“So I do think there is a desire to identify students,” she said. “And this is why the disclosures become incredibly tricky — right? Because the disclosures, to a certain extent — and this is what came up in my interviews with my admissions officers — disclosures give really important context for admissions officers, so they can advocate or create a rationale about why Aya might deserve to get accepted into this, you know, program, right?”

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Waller-Bey continued, “But the consequence is students are now saying, ‘OK, they need me to disclose so they can see me in this process. They need to know my background, my identity. They need to know I’m first-gen. They need to know I’m low-income. They need to know I’m Black. They need to know all these things so they can see me qualitatively now’ — right — because of the limitations post the 2023 race — decision on race-conscious admissions.”

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A November report from Inside High Ed said that various universities still use diversity essays following the 2023 Students for Fair Admissions case and “have kept the prompts, saying they are the best way to get to know their applicants.”

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