Affirmative action helps guarantee equal employment opportunity in colleges and universities and enhances quality in higher education. As it has with other major employers, affirmative action has proved to be a useful tool to colleges and universities in ensuring compliance with fair employment practices and redressing past discrimination. A diverse faculty and staff are essential for colleges and universities to provide high quality in teaching, scholarship, and service to the campus and the community. Colleges and universities should enjoy significant latitude in fulfilling their missions. One of the fundamental strengths of American higher education is the extraordinary diversity of its colleges and universities.
Institutions differ greatly in their missions and serve a wide variety of constituencies.
They employ a variety of quantitative and qualitative factors in the admissions process. Most colleges and universities have undertaken efforts to diversify their student bodies voluntarily, rather than as a result of legal requirements. For them to achieve their educational goals and serve society, it is important that colleges and universities retain the greatest degree of autonomy and freedom to develop their own admissions, academic, and employment standards. The nation's colleges and universities have made important strides in recent years toward ending discrimination and enhancing the participation and success of historically disadvantaged minorities and women of all races. This task, however, is far from complete.