Latitudes: The Supreme Court ruled U.S. colleges can’t use race in admissions. It’s long been banned in France.

A lesson from abroad on affirmative action. Also, new data on student-visa overstays. ADVERTISEMENT [Latitudes Logo]( Did someone forward you this newsletter? [Sign up free]( to receive your own copy. You can now read The Chronicle on [Apple News]( [Flipboard]( and [Google News](. A global view of affirmative action The [U.S. Supreme Court’s decision]( last week to strike down [race-consciousness admissions]( will leave American colleges looking for alternative means to ensure diversity in their student bodies. But higher education in this country isn’t alone in seeking to enroll more students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Federal universities in Brazil must comply with racial and income-based quotas. Leading South African institutions like the University of Cape Town have instituted admissions policies that factor in race as well as other social indicators, such as students’ high school or their parents’ educational level, as part of an effort to undo the legacy of decades of apartheid. Under India’s “reservation” policy, a certain number of university seats are set aside for students from marginalized castes. And then there’s France, where the Constitution prohibits any special treatment on the basis of “origin, race, or religion.” As a result, French universities can’t consider an applicant’s race in admissions decisions. Back in 2016, my colleague Katherine Mangan [looked]( at how one of France’s grandes écoles, or elite colleges, tried to find a workaround to diversify its student body. The Institute of Political Studies, or Sciences Po, sought to enroll more students from low-income high schools in Paris and its suburbs, giving them scholarships, extra tutoring, and professional mentors. Because those high schools are highly segregated, with many students immigrants or children of immigrants from North Africa, the school-based approach acted as a proxy for race. While French universities are barred from collecting statistics based on race, Mangan found that about a quarter of Sciences Po’s students came from disadvantaged backgrounds under the policy. Daniel Sabbagh, a senior researcher at Sciences Po’s Centre for International Studies and Research, calls the program an “indirect, race-conscious affirmative-action policy” — and with the Supreme Court ruling, more American colleges could take similar approaches. In the wake of the decision, “the U.S. is moving closer to a French model, legally speaking,” said Sabbagh, who studies American and French affirmative-action programs. I spoke with him about France’s lack of consensus around the goal of racial diversity within higher education and why indirect affirmative action could be more successful in the United States than in his own country. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. Let me start by asking about your reaction to the Supreme Court’s ruling. What I think is striking in the decision is that they are not saying anything about indirect affirmative action, the extension of class-based affirmative action using sophisticated indicators for class that correlate with race intentionally. This is what matters in my view, because we’re going to see a move toward indirect affirmative action. And that move is not legally jeopardized right now. Your own institution, Sciences Po, has one such indirect affirmative-action program. As American colleges try to figure out what’s next, are there things they can learn from that model? Before you begin to think about my institution, I think that there are interesting elements within the U.S. like [Texas’ percentage plan](. In Texas, they really went far in disaggregating disadvantage to identify many indicators, with many of those correlating with race quite strongly. What my own institution has done has been more successful in terms of diversifying the student body racially then class-wise, which is paradoxical because race is of course not factored into the admissions process. And whatever success there might be is also success by a single institution operating on its own, because Sciences Po is the only French institution which has done something of the kind. And it’s rich. It’s publicly supported, but it has leeway that a private institution might have. That success is not easily replicated, even within France. More broadly, is French higher education a cautionary tale for what can happen when you cannot use race in admissions? I think what is going on in the U.S. is that the U.S. is moving closer to a French model, legally speaking. That is, a model in which it’s not OK to use race transparently in an admissions formula. But basically that move has already been made in the U.S. at the local level, by Texas, by California, by Michigan, by [about 10 states out of 50](. By now, many U.S. universities are already used to dealing with that additional legal constraint. I would say the main difference is probably that levels of residential segregation and levels of high-school segregation are higher in the U.S. than in France, meaning that indirect affirmative action using place as a proxy for race is probably more effective in Texas or even in California than it is in France, where high schools are less segregated. The other main difference is that in the States, it is actually possible to measure the effectiveness of indirect affirmative action because there are still statistical data broken down by race. We are completely unable to do this because we don’t have statistical data broken down by race. We’re simply guessing based on proportions of people whose parents were born abroad or whose parents were not French citizens originally. So we are using proxies all the way down, which makes our indirect affirmative-action regime probably less effective than what it is in Texas. Are there other points of comparison? It’s really hard to tell, because the French higher-education system is so different from the U.S. For example, French universities are basically free and nonselective. And whatever is not free and whatever is selective is a part of the system of grandes écoles. We have a much more institutionally bifurcated system between highly selective and utterly nonselective establishments. In France, there are race-conscious policies, but they are not only indirect; they are indirect and implicit both at the same time. In the U.S., race-conscious policies are usually explicit. If you look at debates, nobody is denying that the goal is to find a way of promoting racial diversity in the student body. Nobody is actually feeling compelled to pretend that they’re doing otherwise. In France, it’s completely different. There isn’t an official acknowledgment of the fact that racial diversity is being promoted and deliberately pursued. There isn’t even the beginning of a consensus about what the goal is supposed to be. Even though U.S. public opinion is strongly against affirmative action, there is a consensus in favor of it within the U.S. higher-education establishment, especially the most selective universities. If you were to poll presidents and faculty members at the top institutions, you would probably get a strong majority in favor of some kind of affirmative action. It’s great to look at what other countries are doing, but I’m not sure that France is really such a useful source of inspiration. I would probably plead for more systematic domestic comparisons or maybe look at India and South Africa and countries that also have a large affirmative-action experience. It’s really a worldwide policy. ADVERTISEMENT NEWSLETTER [Sign Up for the Teaching Newsletter]( Find insights to improve teaching and learning across your campus. Delivered on Thursdays. To read this newsletter as soon as it sends, [sign up]( to receive it in your email inbox. Data on visa overstays released Vocational students were more likely than other international students to stay in the United States beyond the period of time they were authorized to be in the country, according to newly released data from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Of the students on M, or vocational, visas who were supposed to leave the United States in the 2022 fiscal year, there is no record that 5.02 percent departed the country, the [new report]( shows. By comparison, the overstay rate was 3.23 percent for F, or student, visas, and 4.49 percent for J, or exchange-visitor, visas, which are given for short-term study or research. The overstay rate for all student and exchange visas was 3.5 percent. For all nonimmigrant visas, it was 3.42 percent. The department also calculated total overstay rates, a figure that includes visa holders who stayed beyond their allotted time but have since left the United States. Those rates were 4.09 percent for F visas, 5.63 percent for J visas, and 9.14 percent for M visas. This is the first time the department has broken down overstay rates for students and exchange visitors by specific visa type. While some student visas are awarded for certain periods of time, most students are permitted to stay in the United States until they finish their course of study. President Donald J. Trump controversially sought to change that policy to [impose strict time limits]( on student visas, saying that overstays raised national-security concerns. The Biden administration later [withdrew]( the proposed rule change. In the new report, the Department of Homeland Security acknowledged that there are difficulties particular to calculating overstay rates for students because the system that tracks student visas does not always align with the one for monitoring the arrival and departure of foreign travelers to the United States. Because a student can be issued multiple visa documents — for example, one for an undergraduate program and another for graduate study — it can be more difficult to determine valid visa status, the department said. FROM THE CHRONICLE STORE [The Accessible Campus - The Chronicle Store]( [The Accessible Campus]( Despite years of legislation meant to open up higher education to people with disabilities, colleges are still a long way from achieving equity. [Order your copy]( to examine how colleges are working to be more accessible and the challenges that remain. International students’ role in artificial intelligence International students may be key to the United States’ edge in artificial intelligence, a think tank that favors more open immigration argues. Seven in 10 graduate students in select fields related to artificial intelligence are student-visa holders, according to a [new policy brief]( by the National Foundation for American Policy. International students account for a majority of students enrolled in graduate programs in computer and information sciences, the top field of study for artificial-intelligence researchers, the foundation’s analysis shows. Large numbers of students pursuing graduate degrees in fields related to AI, such as electrical and computer engineering, applied mathematics, statistics, and multidisciplinary data science are also from overseas. The data comes from the National Science Foundation. International education is also a critical pipeline for entrepreneurs in artificial intelligence, the analysis noted. Eighteen of the 43 American companies that made Forbes’s list of top AI start-ups were founded by former international students. “Experts consider retaining international students in the United States after graduation essential to U.S. leadership in artificial intelligence,” Stuart Anderson, the foundation’s executive director and author of the policy brief, wrote. Around the globe A group of U.S. House Republicans is urging the U.S. Department of State to scrap a longstanding pact on [scientific cooperation]( with China. A doctoral student at the University of California at Berkeley was shot and [killed]( while on a research trip in Mexico. Hundreds of Mexican researchers have filed a lawsuit that challenges the constitutionality of a [new science law]( that they fear could give the government too much power over research. The Canadian police are calling the stabbing of a professor and two students during a gender-studies class at the University of Waterloo a [hate-motivated attack](. The assailant charged in the attack is a former international student at the university. India’s Cabinet has approved a plan to set up a [national research agency]( to coordinate and fund research. The legislation still must win parliamentary approval to go into effect. Some experts warn that the Indian government could seek to impose [taxes]( on locally based international-student recruiters hired by colleges. The South Korean government is relaxing requirements for [student visas]( as part of an effort to attract more international students. South Korean universities are boycotting the QS World University Rankings because they say a new methodology adopted by the rankings company is [biased]( toward institutions in English-speaking countries. The University of Hong Kong wants to crack down on behavior by students and professors that brings it into “[disrepute]( raising fresh concerns about restrictions on academic freedom. ADVERTISEMENT And finally … If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. But 27 times may be enough for a Chinese millionaire, who has repeatedly tried to raise his score on the gaokao, China’s famously difficult national college-entrance exam. Liang Shi, a businessman, has taken the test more than two dozen times since 1983, trying to earn a score high enough for acceptance to Sichuan University, his dream school. But after falling short again this year, he might finally end his quest. “I just admire intellectuals,” he [told]( NBC News. “I have been in awe of knowledge and well-educated people since I was a kid.” Thanks for reading. I always welcome your feedback and ideas for future reporting, so drop me a line at karin.fischer@chronicle.com. You can also connect with me on [Twitter]( or [LinkedIn](. If you like this newsletter, please share it with colleagues and friends. They can [sign up here](. NEWSLETTER FEEDBACK [Please let us know what you thought of today's newsletter in this three-question survey](. This newsletter was sent to {EMAIL}. [Read this newsletter on the web](. [Manage]( your newsletter preferences, [stop receiving]( this email, or [view]( our privacy policy. © 2023 [The Chronicle of Higher Education]( 1255 23rd Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037