(NEWSnet/AP) — New guidance from the Biden administration urges colleges to use a range of strategies to promote racial diversity after the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in admissions.

Colleges can focus recruiting in high-minority areas, for example, and take steps to retain students of color who already attend, such as offering affinity clubs geared toward students of a specific race. Colleges also can consider how an applicant’s race has shaped personal experience, as detailed in students’ application essays or letters of recommendation, according to the new guidance.

Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a statement regarding the plan.

“Ensuring access to higher education for students from different backgrounds is one of the most powerful tools we have to prepare graduates to lead an increasingly diverse nation and make real our country’s promise of opportunity for all,” Garland said.

The guidance, from the Justice and Education departments, arrives as colleges attempt to navigate a new era of admissions without the use of affirmative action. Schools are working to promote racial diversity without provoking legal action from opponents of affirmative action.

Students for Fair Admission, which brought the issue to U.S. Supreme Court through lawsuits against Harvard University and University of North Carolina, sent a letter to 150 universities in July saying they must “take immediate steps to eliminate the use of race as a factor in admissions.”

The Biden administration offers a range of policies colleges can use “to achieve a student body that is diverse across a range of factors, including race and ethnicity.”

It also offers clarity on how colleges can consider race in the context of an applicant’s individual experience. The court’s decision bars colleges from considering race as a factor itself, but nothing prohibits colleges from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected the applicant’s life, the court wrote.

Students should feel comfortable to share “their whole selves” in the application process, the administration said. Previously, many students had expressed confusion about whether the court's decision blocked them from discussing their race in essays and interviews.

The administration clarified that colleges don’t need to ignore race as they choose how to focus recruiting.

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