New Hampshire’s population is 90% white, so why did the state ban affirmative action?

Carl Jean-Baptiste was a junior at Plymouth State University when he discovered that the state he immigrated to and lived in for a decade had a ban on affirmative action. 

It was the spring 2022 semester and he was volunteering as a social justice leader at the university’s diversity center. One day, when researching different topics to discuss at their weekly meetings, the then-23-year-old came across an article that stopped him in his tracks.

Ten years before, in 2012, New Hampshire enacted a ban on preferential treatment during recruiting, hiring, promotion, or admission by state agencies, public universities, community colleges, and the postsecondary education commission. The law, which was voted on and approved by the state legislature in 2011, also banned discrimination based on race, sex, national origin, religion, and sexual orientation. 

Jean-Baptiste, who immigrated with his family from Haiti in 2011, remembers he wasn’t shocked by the news. 

Instead, he found himself looking back at his own life, wondering if the law was the answer behind adversity and struggles he faced as a young Black man in a predominantly white state. 

“I was asking myself, wait, so, was that maybe the reason?” Jean-Baptiste remembers  

‘People did not pay any attention’

In 2012, New Hampshire became the seventh state to restrict affirmative action policies, joining California, Florida, Michigan, Washington, Nebraska, and Arizona. Oklahoma and Idaho have also since passed similar legislation. 

Like New Hampshire, Idaho passed an affirmative action ban through the state legislature, while voters approved the restrictions via ballot measures in the rest of the states. In Florida, former Governor Jeb Bush issued a sweeping executive order to implement a similar ban.

Unlike other states, the New Hampshire legislature faced little national attention in its effort to pass the measure, HB623, with the American Civil Rights Institute deliberately avoiding stepping into the debate. The NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund also admitted at the time they were not “involved” in the local debate. 

At the time, some suggested there was a trend of politicians seeking to take a strong stance on affirmative action, particularly as the New Hampshire bill closely followed Arizona and Oklahoma’s restrictions. 

However, former State House Representative D.J. Bettencourt (R) insists there wasn’t one “single impetus” that led to the legislation being passed. “I think, as a matter of principle, there is a group of people that feels that affirmative action is reverse discrimination. I think it had its usefulness at one point. I think that usefulness has expired at this point,” Bettencourt says. 

Bettencourt, who served as Majority Leader of the New Hampshire House of Representatives from 2010 to 2012, describes the four co-sponsors of the bill as “very principled conservative people” that wanted to move forward with the legislation no matter what. 

At the time the bill was enacted, co-sponsor and then-State House Rep. Gary Hopper revealed to The Chronicle of Higher Education he had sponsored a similar bill in 2000. 

He found that while a decade earlier people were actively fighting against the measure, “people were caught off guard” and “did not pay any attention” to it in 2011. Bettencourt theorizes one of the reasons the latest measure passed so easily was due to the Republican majority in the legislature. “At that time, it moves forward. Where it may not have in the past,” he says.

Other co-sponsors of the bill  and  the state Senate Republican Caucus did not respond to multiple requests for comment, and the New Hampshire House of Representatives Republican Caucus declined to give a comment.

Little impact on already small numbers

Despite initially pushing back, higher-education officials in the state ultimately said the restriction would not have a significant impact. A decade later, they appear to have been right. 

Between 2011 and 2021, enrollment for non-white college students at the state’s three largest colleges—Keene State College, the University of New Hampshire (UNH), and Plymouth State University—dropped slightly for some groups and rose slightly for others but enrollment also dropped for white students.

While it is typical to see declines in underrepresented groups in states with widespread restrictions on affirmative action, Dr. Ryan Gibson, an assistant professor of sociology, insisted UNH is an exception. 

“Context really matters when you’re trying to understand numbers and especially when trying to understand numbers and race. So, when you’re talking about the University of New Hampshire, for instance, it’s roughly 83% white—which is very white by the standards of most other colleges and universities. That being said, New Hampshire is 93% white,” Gibson says, noting that many white students coming from in-state find the school diverse. 

Gibson also says there hasn’t been a substantial drop off in underrepresented minorities at the university because the numbers of minorities before were already small. “It didn’t really change anything.” 

For jobs, too, low numbers with no significant change

Since going into effect, there hasn’t been a significant change in the state’s racial makeup of New Hampshire’s labor force, but representation was incredibly low to begin with. This is perhaps due in part to the fact that the state is one of the least diverse in the country: Raking 47th in the nation for racial diversity with non-hispanic white people representing 90% of the population.

 In 2011, only 1.1% of  jobs were held by those who identified as Black, 2.5% by Hispanic, 2.1% of jobs were held by those who identified as Asian, and 0% were held by any other non-white  racial identities according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Four years after the law was enacted, the amount of jobs held by those groups didn’t see a substantial difference. But by 2020, the most recent data available, some of the percentages have inched up. The number of jobs held by  identifying as Black is now 1.8%, while Hispanic representation has increased to 3.8% and other groups have similarly seen slight less than 1% increases. Still, those up slight increases correspond to similar small shifts in the state’s overall demographics in the last decade.   

Pete Hanson, director of talent development for international manufacturing company Turbocam Inc. headquartered in Barrington, NH, credits the continued rise in diversity with communities changing. “New Hampshire is changing,” Hanson says, referring to the slight shift in regional demographics. 

Currently, Turbocam works with an independent contractor that calculates representation in the workforce. With the number of minorities living in New Hampshire remaining relatively low, the company has found their employment levels of minorities and women to be representative of the region.

“We’re actually in good shape based on the availability in our area,” Hanson says, adding that companies in other areas of the state known for being more diverse might have a different availability and representation.

“Nonetheless, we expect to continue our successful outreach efforts to ensure that all applicants and employees are treated fairly based on job-related criteria and without regard to enlist all the protected statuses: race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, [and] gender identity,” Hanson says. 

He declined to provide historical or current demographic data regarding turbocam’s employee makeup due to a confidentiality agreement with their recruiting contractor. 

Hanson revealed hiring practices at Turbocam have not drastically changed since the law was enacted, particularly because the company receives federal contracts and is required to have an affirmative action plan annually to present if audited. However, that could change if SCOTUS rules to repeal affirmative action. The Department of Labor did not respond to numerous requests for confirmation. 

Hanson said the company’s focus has been on ensuring their employee demographics “reflect the makeup of our community,” and they have been continuously working toward that by posting employment opportunities on niche job boards, forming relationships with schools outside New England, and holding an event locally promoting women in manufacturing. 

Martin Toe, a 27-year-old organizer with the Granite State Organizing Project from Hooksett, NH, immigrated to New Hampshire in 2003 with his family from the Ivory Coast. He says his race has always been a barrier—from college admissions to his job search. Reflecting on previous jobs, Toe believes his past employers wanted him to “exude a certain degree of whiteness.” 

“And it’s like what are you, are you looking at my credentials and what I do, my experience? Or are you looking for familiarity, are you looking to see if there’s whiteness in me so that you can feel comfortable,” he says.  

While demographics are moving in a positive direction, Toe says there is still a lot to be done.

“Folks here struggle with racism and have a hard time understanding what it looks like to love your neighbor, what it looks like to treat people with respect and dignity.” 

Trying to make progress with limited tools

As president of Plymouth State University’s Black Student Union, Jean-Baptiste has taken it upon himself to create an environment where other minority students and people of color feel welcome. 

“I want to represent and you know, try to create a culture up where, where students can see and can feel like they’re supported or they can feel like there is something—there’s something here for them,” Jean-Baptiste says. 

He explains the organization’s purpose is not to just show diversity and student differences, but to celebrate that as well. 

‘We want to recognize and learn from each other, because that’s how we will carry on in the workforce,” he says. 

“If we were in a school where there was no diversity, no inclusion, or we didn’t get no perspective from other individuals, we’re just with our blinders.” 

On an institutional level, there are a number of actions state agencies, businesses and public institutions can take. 

Nadine Petty, associate vice president and chief diversity officer of UNH’s Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, revealed several of the university’s initiatives, including the Elizabeth Anne Virgil Visit Day. 

The visit day—set to pilot next spring—is intended to “increase the number of students with diverse identities who visit the Durham campus with the hopes of increasing the number who end up matriculating here,” Petty says. 

All first-generation students, students of color, and other students with marginalized identities who have applied and were accepted to UNH will be invited. 

Petty also emphasized the importance of increasing diverse representation among the university’s faculty. 

“What we know to be true is that colleges and universities with increased racial and ethnic diversity within faculty ranks have a better chance of being attractive to students from diverse backgrounds,” Petty says. 

However, amid those efforts, Gibson—a UNH professor—revealed the university has lost a “sizable number of faculty of color for various reasons” in recent years. 

Gibson said it’s clear the university is serving the students and pushing efforts to increase diversity and inclusion, but it remains to be seen if that will have a positive impact on faculty and staff. 

“We aren’t seeing the retention of faculty of color, [and] that these affirmative action bans don’t help the situation at all, because they limit the tools that universities have to sort of cultivate these environments,” Gibson says.

The human resources departments at the University of New Hampshire and Keene State College did not respond to multiple requests to discuss their school’s employee demographics and hiring practices. Meanwhile, Plymouth State University’s human resources department said “No one in the office is interested” in talking about the subject. 

While subject to the 2012 restriction, the NH Department of Transportation has created multiple affirmative action plans over the years which are available to the public. However the most recent document is over eight years old: a three-year affirmative action plan for 2014 to 2016. 

The document includes a detailed action plan to increase female and minority representation. 

Richard Arcand, the public information officer with the NH Department of Transportation, says the department is in the process of updating the document and declined to provide employee demographic data.

Some private institutions, such as Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, also file similar affirmative action paperwork each year, despite not being required to do so, but declined to speak about the results.

 Dr. Teresa Malcolm, VP of diversity, equity, and inclusion at Dartmouth-Hitchcock revealed some of the action the company has taken to ensure inclusion include revising their dress code policy and creating an “Affirmed/Preferred Name Policy” for employees. 

Professor of Sociology at Tufts University and Affirmative Action expert Natasha Warikoo says that while positive, these actions are not guaranteed to bring states back to pre-restriction levels of minority representation. 

“We have a long way to go,” Warikoo says. “I think affirmative action was a policy that particularly helped us diversify at the leadership level and the profit in the professions, and I think that it’s problematic to not be able to have this tool.” 

Looking to the future 

By late June 2023, the Supreme Court will decide whether colleges are federally protected to continue considering race in admissions. 

With a 6-3 conservative majority in the court, proponents of affirmative action have grown concerned the judges will side against the universities. 

Warikoo warned we don’t actually know what the Supreme Court ruling will look like just yet, but it will be applied to all private and public universities. 

“New Hampshire is a small state . . . so what can happen when you have state bans is that those underrepresented minority students go either to private universities or they go out of state because they have better opportunities in those places. But if it’s bad everywhere, that won’t be the case.”

If institutions are prevented from actively considering race in recruiting and admissions, Warikoo suggested they look at it from a different perspective. 

She specifically suggested universities rethink financial aid, offer multicultural student centers, rethink requirements behind SAT testing, and send ambassadors to underrepresented minority communities.  

At Dartmouth-Hitchcock alone, Malcolm admitted there is still a “lot of work do,” including furthering a culture of inclusion, equity, and trust for all employees, invest in diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) practices, increase DEIB community efforts, as well as “equip and empower leaders to lead inclusively with clarity and accountability.” 

Though still Malcolm hopes institutions will continue to use race as a factor for admissions, hiring and recruitment saying, “we are striving for broader integration and diversity within the workplace to have a workplace that reflects the communities we serve.”

Gibson said if the court decides to rule in favor of the challenges it “legitimizes ideas about race and its insignificance and it legitimizes a color blind approach.” 

“The data on states that banned affirmative action, the outcomes are clear—the outcomes are not just clear, they’re racialized,” he says. “Is this the future we want? Or we can stick with these principles, which we say are confusing and thus we can’t use and now that legitimizes wiping away protections across entire domains of law and education.”

Callie Patteson is a freelance journalist and M.A. Erasmus Mundus Journalism scholar jointly based out of Aarhus, Denmark and southern New Hampshire. She previously worked as a national politics reporter for The New York Post and associate breaking news editor for the Washington Examiner.