While the majority of students in California’s public higher education system are Latinx, Asian American & Pacific Islander, and Black, the racial-ethnic and gender makeup of the presidents of these colleges and universities is much the same as in the 1970s: almost exclusively white and male. Why has so little changed in California’s colleges and higher education institutions nationwide? Why does it matter?
A new report from the College Futures Foundation uncovers answers and solutions. Specifically, findings in the report illustrate how racialization happens in college presidential searches in California’s public higher education institutions—the University of California (UC), California State University (CSU), and California Community Colleges (CCC). The findings on structural bias in these processes, and the proposed solutions in the companion toolkit to the report, have implications for racial equity at other levels of administrative and faculty leadership, at the system level, in other states, and nationally.