Black Immigrant Study Puts Spotlight Back on Affirmative Action Debate

According to a recent study, “Black Immigrants and Black Natives Attending Selective Colleges and Universities in the United States”, first- or second-generation immigrants comprise a disproportionately high percentage of the Black student population at U.S. universities, with the percentage increasing in proportion to the selectivity of the institution. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen, researchers found more than 40 percent of the Black student population at Ivy League colleges are of immigrant origin, despite comprising just 13 percent of the Black population overall.

The report, published in the American Journal of Education by Princeton University and University of Pennsylvania researchers, raises important questions about diversity in higher education and affirmative action, says co-author Dr. Camille Charles, a faculty associate director at Penn’s Center for Africana Studies.

“For affirmative action values, it’s problematic,” she says. “It is more severe in selective schools, where immigrants are more privileged in terms of admissions. [But if] diversity is what most matters, then this is interesting… but not any cause for alarm.”

Since little research has been done on the topic to date, the report documents similarities and differences between the Black American and Black immigrant populations. The disparity in college attendance, particularly at the nation’s premier universities, first gained
national attention in 2003, when Harvard University professors Lani Guinier and Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. noted that of the university’s 530 Black undergraduates in 2003-2004, only about 180 could claim a completely Black American heritage.

Just above 43 percent of the Black immigrants surveyed hailed from the Caribbean, with 28.6 percent coming from Africa and 7.4 percent from Latin America. Jamaica (20.5 percent) and Nigeria (17.3 percent) were the home countries of the most students.