The Supreme Court’s ban on affirmative action in admissions has left colleges and universities scrambling to rethink strategies for ensuring a broad swath of diversity in their student bodies. For decades, race-conscious admissions provided one tool for ensuring representation. Colleges and universities that only used—or overused—this pathway must expand and find new ways to recruit and support students from historically excluded communities.

This urgency is magnified by another challenge: the demographic cliff. The number of traditional college-aged students is projected to decline sharply in the coming decade, even as the K–12 pipeline reflects the most diverse generation in U.S. history. The Census Bureau predicted that America would be majority-minority by 2042, and that moment is nearly here. I call this transformation hue-ing™—a term that describes the deepening richness and multidimensionality of America’s population. Hue-ing™ makes clear that diversity is not incidental; it is structural.

Taken together, the end of affirmative action and the demographic cliff signal that traditional recruitment strategies must be refined and redefined. What if the answer lies in an unexpected place: the theory of redistricting?

From Districts to Recruitment Territories

Just as political redistricting reshapes who has a voice in our democracy, higher education can “redistrict” its recruitment maps to determine who gets access to opportunity. In redistricting, the principle is simple but powerful: one person, one vote; equal weight of representation. Translated to higher education, this becomes one community, one opportunity; equal access to recruitment.

Too often, colleges return to the same high schools, geographic regions, and privileged feeder pipelines, reinforcing inequity while missing out on the abundance of talent found elsewhere. Here, principles of redistricting theory offer guidance:

• Compactness and contiguity
  Districts are meant to be geographically coherent. In recruitment, this means avoiding concentration solely on affluent feeder schools while leaving neighboring districts untouched.
• Communities of interest
  Redistricting aims to protect groups with shared cultural, linguistic, or economic ties. In higher education, this translates into intentionally engaging first-generation students, immigrant families, rural populations, and adult learners.
• Regular review
  Just as districts are redrawn every 10 years after the census, recruitment maps must be revisited regularly to align with shifting demographics rather than relying on outdated pipelines.

Imagine a mid-sized liberal arts college in the Midwest that historically recruited heavily from suburban schools with high AP participation. After the reversal of affirmative action, the college reimagines its “districts” of recruitment. Instead of sending admissions counselors to the same 50 schools, they redraw the map to include rural districts, tribal schools, urban centers, and charter networks. They build relationships with community-based organizations that serve immigrant youth and first-generation families. They provide virtual workshops for students in regions without easy access to college fairs.

Within a few years, the applicant pool looks different—not because of race-conscious admissions, but because the institution honored the principle of representation by broadening the recruitment map.

In redistricting, the principle is simple but powerful: one person, one vote; equal weight of representation.

This is redistricting recruitment in action: ensuring all communities of interest have a fair chance to be seen, heard, and considered.

Hue-ing™ and Higher Education’s Responsibility

Hue-ing™ challenges institutions to face demographic reality with clarity. Our society is not only diversifying; it is structurally shifting in ways that demand new forms of leadership. Ignoring these shifts threatens higher education’s relevance and viability. By intentionally engaging historically excluded populations, colleges create access for those typically not on their radar and prepare students to lead in a world where cultural competence is a professional necessity, not an optional skill.

The demographic cliff makes this even more urgent. With fewer students overall, institutions cannot afford to overlook large and growing segments of the population. Expanding recruitment beyond traditional boundaries is not just an equity imperative; it is a survival strategy.

A Call to Action

Higher education leaders must seize this moment of transition. Redistricting recruitment provides a legally sound, equity-minded framework for navigating the post-affirmative action era. It asks institutions to:

• Broaden recruitment pipelines to reflect the diversity of today’s K–12 landscape.
• Expand communities of interest to include first-generation, rural, and transfer students.
• Regularly review and adapt recruitment maps as demographics change.

The time is short, and the stakes are high. America’s hue-ing™ is not a future projection—it is our present reality. Colleges that embrace this transformation will thrive. Those that cling to outdated recruitment patterns will find themselves left behind, unprepared to educate the leaders our global society demands. While many colleges and universities proclaim that they provide transformational experiences for students, hue-ing™ requires these institutions to transform themselves to meet the needs of students currently in the K–12 pipeline.