Critical Mass Revisited

–178 DOI: 10.3102/0013189X13486763 © 2013 AERA. http://er.aera. net 176 EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER Numerous legal scholars and social scientists have highlighted the ways in which research has informed judicial decision making (e.g., Dunn & West, 2008; Morgan & Pullin, 2010; Moses & Marin, 2006). Because, in part, of convincing empirical research presented in several landmark cases (e.g., Grutter v. Bollinger, 2003; Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, 2007), the consideration of race in educational policies has been deemed permissible, albeit in limited, narrowly tailored ways. Grutter also represented an affirmation of the importance of research for social scientists whose work provided empirical evidence of the educational benefits of diversity and the importance of a “critical mass” of underrepresented students, which served as a basis for the Court’s decision. Although the Court upheld the University of Michigan Law School’s admissions policy in Grutter, the opinion of the Court also stated the expectation that race would no longer need to be considered in a generation’s time. However, as evidenced by the oral arguments of Fisher v. University of Texas, which came just 9 years after Grutter, time may be running short for race-conscious admissions. In the Fisher oral arguments, the questions did not necessarily focus on diversity—defined as a “critical mass” of underrepresented students—as a compelling interest. Instead, many of the concerns (most often voiced by the Court’s more conservative Justices) centered around two questions: (a) Can a critical mass of racial/ethnic minority members be achieved without considering race? and (b) How will we know that a critical mass has been achieved and, thus, that the endpoint for the consideration of race has been reached? Both of these questions concern the narrow tailoring of holistic admissions policies in which race is considered as a factor (see footnote 2 in Garces, this issue, for further discussion of narrow tailoring). The intense focus on these two questions suggests that we, as social scientists, need to be more effective and strategic in our efforts to communicate findings from existing research on the effects of race-neutral policies on access and success for underrepresented populations. We should be prepared as well to conduct further inquiry into what the indicators of a critical mass are across a range of institutional contexts. As scholar-advocates whose previous work has focused on broadening participation in science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM), and related fields, we argue that social scientists ought to look to the vast STEM education research literature to begin the task of empirically investigating the questions raised in the Fisher case. In the analysis that follows, we provide our answers to the two questions above, based on research and evaluation of current programs and institutional efforts aimed at broadening participation in STEM. With regard to the first question, whether a critical mass can be achieved without considering race, “we doubt it. ” There have been numerous efforts to find proxies for race such as socioeconomic status (SES) or first-generation status. Across higher education as well as within STEM, these proxies have not represented race and ethnicity. In STEM, this is evidenced by the declines in underrepresented minority student enrollment in STEM graduate degree programs that followed the implementation of raceblind admissions policies, and a failure to regain previous levels in the subsequent years (Garces, 2013; Malcom, Van Horne, Gaddy, & George, 1998). With regard to the second question, how can one know when a critical mass has been reached, “when diversity is selfsustaining. ” Decades of scholarly research and programmatic evaluations aimed at understanding the factors that contribute to diversified STEM programs indicate that sustainable diversity results from environmental changes—that is, changes in culture, curricula, and instruction; quality and quantity of supportive practices; and faculty behaviors, attitudes, and expectations)— that support the success of all students (see Chubin, DePass, & Blockus, 2009; DePass & Chubin, 2008; Fox, Sonnert, & Nikiforova, 2009; Margolis & Fisher, 2002; Maton & Hrabowski, 2004).