In a recent opinion piece in the South Florida Sun Sentinel, founding director of the University of Texas’ Intellectual Entrepreneurship Consortium Richard Cherwitz makes the argument that institutional programs that address the underlying causes of a widespread lack of diversity in graduate study can help fill the diversity initiative gap left by the Supreme Court’s ban on affirmative action. 

Cherwitz emphasizes the urgent need for action in promoting diversity within a race-neutral admissions system, highlighting the importance of finding innovative solutions to achieve this goal.

Cherwitz begins his analysis by evaluating the effectiveness of administrators in promoting diversity through the previous model of affirmative action. Although he acknowledges some progress, he highlights the significant underrepresentation of African Americans and Hispanics among doctoral degree recipients that persisted under the system. Surprisingly, even with the implementation of affirmative action, these groups made up a smaller proportion of doctoral degrees compared to their representation among all U.S. citizens who are eligible for Ph.D. programs.

Without more people of color earning doctoral degrees, Cherwitz argues, there will remain an insufficient supply of minority faculty. Additionally, due to the preference of many minority students to attend institutions with faculty who resemble them and have shared experiences, it becomes less likely for talented minority students to opt for enrollment at institutions where faculty of color are underrepresented. Consequently, this perpetuates a lack of diversity throughout college campuses at both the student and staff level.

With the Supreme Court’s decision eliminating affirmative action, the challenge of diversifying higher education becomes even more daunting. Cherwitz identifies  the lack of minority applicants as a key, albeit often overlooked, factor contributing to this challenge. Using his own institution, The University of Texas at Austin (UT), as a test case, he observes that graduate applicants for the summer and fall of 2022 were low: Hispanic applications constituted 7.82% of all applicants, Black or African American comprised only 2.57%.

To address this shortage of diverse graduate applicants that may contribute to a persistent lack of diversity in higher education, Cherwitz urges us to assess and address the underlying reasons why diverse students may not pursue graduate education. Many, he writes, do not consider pursuing graduate degrees and instead opt for fields such as law, medicine, or business. This choice is driven not only by the allure of financial stability and prestige but also by an understanding of the significant societal impact these professions can have, Cherwitz asserts, citing Washington Post columnist William Raspberry’s claim that minority students as well as first-generation college students may “perceive withdrawal from the rough and tumble of everyday problems as dereliction.”

To remedy this perception that graduate education is devoid of social relevance, Cherwitz offers the program he directed at his own institution as a potential model. During its existence from 1997 to 2019, the Intellectual Entrepreneurship (IE) program at UT offered a unique vision and educational model, encouraging students to become citizen-scholars. By immersing students in community projects that allowed them to apply their knowledge and skills, while also requiring them to identify and adapt to audiences who would benefit from their research, intellectual entrepreneurship demonstrated the material societal value of pursuing advanced studies.

While the program was designed to enhance the significance of graduate education for every student, Cherwitz notes that IE’s demographic data revealed a specific appeal to minority students. 20% of IE students belonged to underrepresented minority groups, which was significantly higher than the 9% representation of these groups in UT’s overall graduate student population.

According to these diverse students, the Intellectual Entrepreneurship program (IE) not only helped them navigate the path to success in graduate school, but also demystified the entire experience. They found that IE offered a rare opportunity to utilize their intellectual abilities to make a positive impact on their communities, which was a widely-shared motivating factor.

In Cherwitz’s view, IE’s potential was best illustrated by its pre-graduate school internship. From 2003-2019, the program facilitated mentorship between undergraduates, faculty, and graduate students. Interns engaged in collaborative research endeavors alongside their mentors, gained valuable insights by attending graduate-level courses, shadowed teaching and research assistants, actively participated in disciplinary activities, and embarked on a journey of self-discovery as they explored their potential futures. 

Of these interns, 65% were underrepresented minorities, first-generation or economically disadvantaged students, and over half went on to pursue a graduate degree. In the spring of 2018, Cherwitz notes, the undergraduate IE cohort consisted of 150 students, and a one-third of them were Hispanic, compared to the university-wide percentage of 18%. Additionally, while only 4.5% of UT students identified as African American, these same students made up 18% of the IE cohort. According to Cherwitz, this shows the significant impact and success of the Intellectual Entrepreneurship program in attracting and supporting underrepresented minority students.

According to feedback from interns, the Intellectual Entrepreneurship (IE) program provided them with a unique space to reflect on how education can help them achieve their goals. IE empowered these students by showing them how academic disciplines can serve as valuable tools in realizing their aspirations.

Cherwitz’s message is clear: in order to enhance diversity in a race-neutral era, he argues, we need to come up with innovative methods to expand the pool of applicants. One effective approach is to help students recognize the connections between their professional ambitions and their education, and a proliferation of programs like the Intellectual Entrepreneurship utilized at UT could be a means of achieving this.