Colleges confirm advocates’ worst fears after Supreme Court affirmative action ruling

Colleges are confirming fears held since the Supreme Court decision against affirmative action, with multiple schools reporting significant declines in Black and Hispanic students among this year’s incoming class.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Amherst College and Tufts University all released data showing their share of minority students has dropped after the high court said universities could no longer consider race on their applications. 

Experts are calling for administrators to find alternative routes to help Black and Hispanic students, saying failure to do so will harm their institutions’ reputations. 

“This is about what people anticipated when the Supreme Court decision came down last summer, in part because affirmative action was a tool among many that was seeking to mitigate some of these systemic impediments to marginalized groups’ ability to enter into competitive postsecondary institutions. And so removing one of those tools would then make it harder for members of those groups to gain admittance to some of these institutions,” said Timothy Welbeck, director for the Center of Anti-Racism at Temple University.

MIT, which was the first to report its data, said Black, Hispanic and/or Native American and Pacific Islander students make up 16 percent of the incoming class of 2028, compared to 25 percent for the class ahead of them.

The trend has hit Black students particularly hard. Black enrollment fell 10 percentage points at MIT, 8 points at Amherst, 3 points at Tufts and nearly 1 point at the University of Virginia (UVA).

“I would say that the Black population of these various admission classes were most impacted in part because of the history around education in our country: Black people have been targeted as a group to be denied access to higher education, and we’re only a few generations removed from where that was the law of the land,” Welbeck said. 

“I think it helps to explain why this would be a group that could be most impacted, because, again, you’re removing these institutions’ ability to consider some of those factors when considering some of these applicants,” he added.

Meanwhile, Yale University released data Wednesday painting a more complicated picture. While Yale’s share of white students increased and its Asian American population declined, its Black and Hispanic enrollment held steady.

“Given that the Supreme Court made room for life experiences and hardships, there may have been more conversation around these types of things at Yale. And perhaps white students with challenges were more likely to get in. The dip in Asian students is interesting and concerning, but I’m not sure how to explain it,” said Marybeth Gasman, executive director for Rutgers University’s Center for Minority Serving Institutions.

“I think things will get more interesting in terms of being able to take a look at the trends across the country as more numbers come in,” she added.

Asian American enrollment also fell slightly at UVA and Tufts, both of which also reported increases in Hispanic enrollment.

The Supreme Court struck down race as a factor in college admissions last summer, with the conservative-majority justices saying the practice did not comply with the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection.

Challengers said the admission policies of Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill discriminated against white and Asian American students.

The liberal justices condemned the ruling, with Sonia Sotomayor arguing it “cements a superficial rule of colorblindness as a constitutional principle in an endemically segregated society where race has always mattered and continues to matter.”

Advocates say schools need to work harder to attract students and help counter false narratives about the numbers, particularly that minority representation has dropped because minority applicants are not up to snuff.

Stu Schmill, dean of admissions at MIT, said, “Many people have told me over the years that MIT ought to care only about academic excellence, not diversity. But every student we admit, from any background, is already located at the far-right end of the distribution of academic excellence.” 

Schools have been looking at partnering with more outreach organizations and appealing to underprivileged areas in order to increase diversity.

“I guess my biggest piece of advice is to reach out and network with other Native organizations to make sure that you can provide the services that will attract Native students and retain Native students,” said Angelique Albert, CEO of Native Forward.

Albert said the institutions least impacted have previously shown to have been intentional about making students of all backgrounds feel included.

“And then there are the institutions that have historically incorporated things that will help Native people be successful, such as having Native American administrators, Native American professors, and Native curriculum and cultural activities on campus, Native peer groups on campuses, and all of those things are going to lend to these institutions attracting Native students to their campuses,” Albert added. 

If the schools are not able to find solutions, some say there will be questions about the elite status the institutions have claimed.

“What they could do is invest some of that money in pipeline programs to ensure that more Black students can get into some of these schools that are highly competitive by compensating for the socioeconomic inequities that are out there,” Gasman said.

“So rather than just throwing up their hands and saying, ‘Well, we don’t know what to do,’ I think that they should really think about all of the intellect that they have at their institutions, and think about what they can do with all that intellect to solve a problem, right? If you are a place like MIT and you can’t solve this problem, I’m not sure if your scientists, you know, are the best, right? Because you should be able to solve this problem,” Gasman added.