Discrimination and Bias, Underrepresentation, and Sense of Belonging on Campus

The central question that this report addresses is whether distinctions in the college composition of Blacks, Latina/os, and Native Americans are associated with rates of discrimination and bias on campus. In a previous HERI report, it concluded low representation of these groups is detrimental to campus climate and subsequent participation in a diverse workforce. The report extends this research to show the relationship between students’ discrimination and bias experiences among African American and Latina/o college students averaged across six years of national data collection and students’sense of belonging on campus, a key antecedent to retention in college. The data for this brief come from the experiences of 8,887 underrepresented minority (URM) students who attended 58 four-year campuses that took part in the Diverse Learning Environments (DLE) survey between 2010 and 2015.