Attempts to diversify nursing schools in the past have greatly impacted nursing practice today. These attempts addressed racial restrictions in the past that prevented some from entering the nursing profession. Black nurses developed their own professional societies and nursing schools within White institutions that did not allow them entry. Black nurses also continued to fight for equal employment and equal educational opportunities. This pushed towards federal involvement in nursing education and also contributed to a more diverse nursing field (Anchrum, 2025). The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Nurse Training Act of 1964 eliminated legalized segregation in professional nursing education and allowed access to nursing education that was previously denied to a large number of Black nurses. These acts have influenced today's more diverse nursing field.
The Nurse Training Act was important with regard to nondiscrimination and federal funds. If nursing programs did not desegregate they could lose federal funds. This encouraged desegregation in nursing programs (Anchrum, 2025). Simply desegregating a program though was not always enough to achieve equal access. Additional steps such as tutoring, financial aid, bridge programs, recruitment and support were needed to help underrepresented students successfully access and complete nursing programs. The Nurse Training Act also facilitated other actions that promoted diversity within nursing programs (Anchrum, 2025). Access and support for underrepresented students were both needed to achieve diversity.
I feel that there has been a visible, yet incomplete, increase in diversity within the nursing profession. There was a significant increase in the number of underrepresented minority nurses within the 10-year study. By 2018 - 2019, underrepresented minority nurses made up approximately 19% of the nursing population (Hynson et al., 2022). There was also a convergence of Black nurses towards their percent of the U.S. population. There was also an increase in diversity across all levels of the nursing education system. Despite these increases underrepresented minority nurses are still behind their 31.6% of the general population (Hynson et al., 2022). This data suggests that nursing is becoming more diverse, but there are still racial and ethnic disparities.
The nursing schools have also become diverse in response to several modern pedagogical approaches. Strategies of targeted recruitment, community partnerships, and comprehensive admissions approaches can increase opportunities for students who are underrepresented (Matthews et al., 2022). With holistic admissions, there has been an increase in Latinx enrollment at the University of Illinois Chicago College of Nursing from 8.2% in 2013 to 18.9% in 2016. Importantly, there were no statistically significant decreases in science GPA, overall GPA, graduation rates, or first-time NCLEX pass rates (Matthews et al., 2022). This shows that nursing schools can increase diversity and maintain high academic achievement and standards.
One more challenge in diversifying a nursing workforce is retention. Having a student who is not represented in the school is not enough if the school fails to offer support once the student is admitted. Minority nursing students may experience inadequate advising or mentoring, social isolation, microaggression and a lack of belonging (Matthews et al., 2022). To help mitigate these obstacles, nursing schools should strive to offer tutoring, academic advising, peer mentoring, faculty mentoring, and offer scholarships as well as provide a positive learning environment and opportunities for faculty development. Positive relationships with students and instructors and amongst students are effective levers to enhance students' sense of belonging and persistence (Matthews et al., 2022). The strategies help students to remain in nursing programs, to successfully complete, and to enter the nursing workforce.
In summary, nursing education has become diverse and varied as a result of constant advocacy, changed policies, financial support and institutional reform. Early black nurse leaders resisted the segregation and contributed to the setting up of conditions that led to the increased access to professional nursing education (Anchrum, 2025). This work continues to be done in nursing schools today through recruiting, whole person admissions, mentoring, academic upskilling, and working to establish a learning environment (Matthews et al., 2022). Additionally, the national workforce statistics indicate that there has been some improvement with respect to the representation of racial/ethnic groups, yet there are disparities in advanced practice, teaching, research, and employment opportunities (Hynson et al., 2022). Although there has been some advancement in the nursing career, more advancement needs to be made in order to get more representation
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