Photo: David McNews/The New York Times

For high school seniors and their families, August marks the official beginning of college application process. This is the first application season since the U.S. Supreme Court effectively ended affirmative action policies by restricting colleges' ability to consider race in their admissions decisions.

In this interview, Minnesota college officials and admissions experts discuss what has changed and how students should approach this year's application season.

Discussions of diversity are not “nice-to-haves.” They sit at the core of what it means to be an institution of higher learning, contends Nathan Long, president of Saybrook University, a private graduate school in Pasadena, California. 

In this essay, Long calls on leaders at institutions everywhere to step up and make their voices heard as politicians attempt to muzzle public colleges on issues of diversity and race. 

Photo: Christina A. Samuels/The Hechinger Report

Victoria Trice, Sharahn Santana, and Ed Allison are teachers who share at least one thing in common: a devotion to deeply exploring the history of Black people in America—a topic that has often been downplayed, or simply left out of, general history lessons.  
 
Such classes are under a microscope after the political skirmish set off when Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida rejected portions of an African American studies course piloted by the College Board. At least five other states are examining the course to see if it is contrary to similar state laws.