In this assignment you will use data to explore the different educational experiences among racial groups in the U.S., particularly in the real-world example of race in college admissions. For context, the admission process is an open one at Ashford University in that there are few barriers to admission to a program of study. As such, Ashford enjoys a high occurrence of diversity in its student demographic. This, however, may not always be the case in traditional college admissions practices in the US.

Read the document submitted by the American Sociological Association (ASA) to the United States Supreme Court regarding a Michigan Law School case. The goal is for you to engage the empirical data and summary arguments while drawing your own conclusions about the college admission process.

After reading the ASA’s position on this case, address the following:

• Thoroughly summarize (Links to an external site.) the key elements of the argument presented by ASA. This summary should include:
• A general overview of ASA’s position.
• A discussion of the fundamental justifications behind ASA’s position including residential segregation, school segregation, economic disadvantages, stigma, and the relevance of race-based life experiences to university admissions.

Please be mindful to summarize the ASA’s position on these issues in your own words.

• Argue your own position as to whether or not college admission officers should consider race (as one of many factors), when deciding whom to accept to colleges. Be sure to use scholarly evidence and empirical data to support your position. Which position you take has NO bearing on your grade. However, you will be graded on how well you support your argument with scholarly evidence and empirical data, as well as the amount of thought put into your argument. Your argument must:
• Be well-reasoned and based on scholarly evidence and empirical data – Not on personal ideologies and/or uninformed opinions.
• Explain why you have chosen the position that you have (using facts and empirical data).
• Depending on the position you take, propose either an alternative solution to addressing racial inequalities in college admissions or propose a solution for implementing racial consideration in the admissions of an actual college setting.
• If you argue that race should not be taken into account along with other life experiences in college admissions, then you must also propose ways in which current racial inequalities of educational attainment can best be overcome.
• If you argue that race should be taken into account along with other life experiences in college admissions, then you must also propose ways in which this could best be implemented in an actual applied setting.

The Race and College Admissions Assignment:

• Must be 8 to 10 double-spaced pages in length (excluding title and reference pages), and formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center (Links to an external site.).
• Must include a title page (Links to an external site.) with the following:
• Title of paper
• Student’s name
• Course name and number
• Instructor’s name
• Date submitted
• Must begin with an introductory paragraph (Links to an external site.) that has a succinct thesis statement. (Links to an external site.)
• Must address the topic of the paper with critical thought.
• Must end with a conclusion (Links to an external site.) that reaffirms your thesis.
• Must use the textbook and at least five scholarly sources.
• The Scholarly, Peer-Reviewed, and Other Credible Sources table offers additional guidance on appropriate source types. If you have questions about whether a specific source is appropriate for this assignment, please contact your instructor. Your instructor has the final say about the appropriateness of a specific source for a particular assignment.
•  Must document all sources in APA style, as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center. Cite your sources in text and on a separate reference page. For more information please review the In-Text Citation Guide (Links to an external site.) and the APA References List.  (Links to an external site.)
•  Please review the APA Essay Checklist for Students (Links to an external site.) to ensure you have all of the required components for your Final Paper. In addition, click on the links above to see examples of title pages, introductory paragraphs, thesis statements, and conclusions.

*This assignment was inspired by: Beer, Christopher T. 2013 “Race and College Admissions.” Assignment published in TRAILS: Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology. Washington DC: American Sociological Association. (http://trails.asanet.org (Links to an external site.))

Carefully review the Grading Rubric (Links to an external site.) for the criteria that will be used to evaluate your assignment.