Affirmative action crosses the path of big data in university applications: Part 2

But let’s come back to the initial objective of this data collection, which seems to be the contribution to “affirmative action”. Through monitoring ethnic origins, religion and sexual features of its applicants, the university obviously commits itself to the achievement of a certain level of diversity. But what kept bothering me was how to be certain of the good faith of this process? Could I doubt of the assertion that my data will not be transmitted to the admission’s office, and will not impact my application in the end? I decided to investigate on what were the government’s directives on that matter, and on the eventual constraints it could impose. 

The most prominent measure I found was the Equality Act passed in 2010, to which HESA referred in its objectives. This act harmonized the existing legislation and was created for legally protecting citizens from discriminations on their working place but also in their everyday life. One of the chapters specifically focused on Higher Education, and mentioned : “The responsible body of an institution to which this section applies must not discriminate against a person in the arrangements it makes for deciding who is offered admission as a student ”

This offered me a legal guarantee that the Admissions would not select me based on this information. Indeed, under Equality Act, any discrimination (be it even called affirmative or positive) is prohibited in order to ensure an equal treatment of all students. Two priorities seem to appear for universities: ensuring the fairness of the selection and promoting inclusiveness as well as social mobility.

The Social Advisory Group of UK Universities published a report titled “Working in Partnership: enabling social mobility in higher education”, made with the contributions of various institutions such as UCAS or Office for Fair Access (OFFA). 

The report summarized the situation in terms of diversity in education, based on the data supposedly provided by the applicants themselves. However, it showed some paradoxes that disrupt our traditional vision emerge from it. First, in terms of gender, women are 36% more likely to apply for and 35% more likely to enter higher education via UCAS than men, representing 57% of total students in the country in 2016. However, white students are not systematically succeeding in higher education: the report outlines a dramatic level of white students from a low socio-economic class.

In terms of ethnicity, it provides a quite contrasted image: while noting higher entry rates for Chinese students, the experts note a 7 points percentage gap with African background students.

This being said, I wondered what could be the leverage of these universities for tackling under-representation of minorities without exerting affirmative action. This challenge inspires emotional tribunes in the Guardian, long and well documented reports but seems inefficient in terms of concrete results. However, one of the most interesting initiatives I found was at the University of Edinburgh. The faculty of Literature and Languages nominated a « People and Equality Director » whose role consists in making sure that the Universities policies comply with relevant legislation, and raising awareness about these issues among both the students and the administration. If we compare with other initiatives and recommendations of advisory groups, we often find comprehensive advices to be more transparent and communicative about the University’s data. 

And here we go again with our data collection and privacy. Now, the question would be : is sacrificing your privacy for the sake of a multicultural and gender-balanced environment worth it? Well, although I personally believe it’s not, it is not such a danger when you are in the UK. Indeed, the UK antidiscrimination policy is more focused on equal treatment rather than preferential treatment, as it can be the case in the US. In that perspective, UK universities essentially collect the data for monitoring purposes, and not for a compensation of a potential disbalance by changing the admissions guidelines for instance. 

Moreover, from what we have seen in this short investigation, there are no concrete means of enforcement in a case where backgrounds diversity is not respected. The universities’ scope of action is quite vague and limited when it comes to “adapting its policies” to a too homogeneous environment.