Affirming Race, Diversity, and Equity Through Black and Latinx Students’ Lived Experiences Rican Vue Oregon State University Siduri Jayaram Haslerig University of Oklahoma Walter R. Allen University of California, Los Angeles Immediately after President Obama’s successful campaign, many hypothe- sized that the United States had entered a post-racial era. This study uses crit- ical race theory to examine how high-achieving Black and Latinx college students make meaning of and navigate affirmative action policy discourses in an era of colorblind racial politics. Semi-structured interviews with 46 alumni of two race-conscious college access programs illustrate how partic- ipants employ a race-conscious framework that affirms the reality of race- conscious policies. Their discourse addressing race, intersectionality, and equity disrupts colorblind ideology. Connecting our analysis to the current social landscape, we argue intersectionality offers a framework for engaging politics of accountability. In the conclusion, we conceptually distinguish between post-racial era conditions and post-race (or post-racist) aspirations. RICAN VUE, PhD, is an assistant professor of education policy in the School of Public Policy at Oregon State University, 300 Bexell Hall, Corvallis, OR 97331; e-mail: rican .vue@oregonstate.edu. Her research focuses on the role of race and its intersections with ethnicity, class, and gender in the social, political, symbolic, and structural dynamics of U.S. education with an emphasis on equity and inclusion in higher education. SIDURI JAYARAM HASLERIG, PhD, is an assistant professor of higher education and director of the Intercollegiate Athletics Administration Graduate Program at the University of Oklahoma. Her research focuses on diversity, access, and inclusion and nests the study of intercollegiate athletics within higher education. WALTER R. ALLEN, PhD, is Allan Murray Cartter Professor of Higher Education and Distinguished Professor of Education, Sociology and African American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research focuses on inclusion, equity, and quality in higher education with particular emphasis on disparities by race, eth- nicity, gender, class, region, and national origins. American Educational Research Journal Month XXXX, Vol. XX, No. X, pp. 1–36 DOI: 10.3102/0002831217708550 Ó 2017 AERA. http://aerj.aera.net