Pace Now

The stream of headlines has been steady: The pandemic, and the shutdowns necessary to limit its spread, caused significant learning loss among America’s students. They both learned less and became less socialized when schooling was remote. The result was a dramatic drop in K-12 math and reading scores, as demonstrated in the recent release of what’s called the nation’s report card. Those who were hurt most were those who were already disadvantaged.

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Oct. 31 in Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina and Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, the latest cases to look at the legality of the limited use of race and ethnicity in college admissions. Pace University President Marvin Krislov and ACE General Counsel Peter McDonough join host Jon Fansmith for a preview of the hearing and what to watch for. Krislov was vice president and general counsel at the University of Michigan during the landmark 2003 admissions case Grutter v. Bollinger.

President Krislov pens a column about the Supreme Court’s hearings on race in the college admission process as justices consider abolishing the practice...

Writing for the majority in the 2003 Supreme Court decision Grutter v. Bollinger, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor looked back at precedent: “It has been 25 years since Justice Powell first approved the use of race to further an interest in student body diversity in the context of public higher education.”

Not too long after the 2006 ballot initiative, Marvin Krislov left Michigan to become the president of Oberlin College, in Ohio, and later took the same role at Pace University, in New York City—a school that is less than fifty per cent white and admits more than eighty per cent of its applicants. Working at a school that’s not hyper-focused on élite admissions has not changed his belief in the importance of diversity. But his latest gig has changed his perspective. “I wouldn’t say that I’m running away from the notion that affirmative action can be an important tool for college admissions,” he said. These days, though, he spends more time thinking about everything that happens before kids apply to college, and how debates about diversity in higher education have obscured the many barriers that students face in getting to college in the first place. “The majority of Americans are not going to go to the University of Michigan or Harvard,” Krislov said. “And that’s just fine.”

President Marvin Krislov provides legal insights and expertise for The Hechinger Report’s in-depth series exploring the origins of affirmative action and the arguments before the Supreme Court that are challenging this practice today.

President Krislov talks being back on campus, more forward momentum for the University's strategic plan, ongoing improvements to our NYC Campus, plans for Emotional Wellbeing Month, and so much more.

As I talk to students around our campuses—on new student move-in days, as part of undergraduate convocations, even in the law school seminar I’m teaching this semester—what I hear consistently is that students are ready to move on.

"Welcome to the Fall 2022 semester, and welcome to what is shaping up to be our first post-pandemic academic year at Pace University. I’m proud of how this community came together over the past few years," writes President Krislov.

They used to say it’s not what you know but who you know that helps you to get ahead. It’s an axiom from a different era—a less egalitarian, less meritocratic, clubbier time. But a major new study on economic mobility is once again proving, albeit in a very different way, that who you know can make a real difference in outcomes.