Harvard enrolls fewer Black students in first snapshot of impact of Supreme Court's ban on race conscious admissions

There are fewer Black students in Harvard University's freshman class compared to last year, the school announced Wednesday. The drop in diversity for incoming students, which mirrors the trend at other top schools in the region, comes a year after the Supreme Court ended the use of race-conscious admissions in higher education.

The school’s numbers show a drop in new Black student enrollment to 14% from 18% last year, with little or no fluctuation in other race categories. The school did not report the percent of new white students enrolled. The percentage of students who did not self-report race doubled from 4% to 8%.

Harvard was one of two defendants in the legal case challenging affirmative action in higher education. The other named defendant, the University of North Carolina, also saw a decrease in Black student enrollment, from 10.5% last year to 7.8% this year. A nonprofit led by a conservative legal activist took aim at the schools' admissions policies, alleging race-conscious admissions discriminated against qualified Asian American and white applicants.

In a letter to colleagues Wednesday, Hopi Hoekstra, the dean of Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, said the new data offers a “first glimpse of the impact of the court’s decision, though we anticipate its full impact on the class composition at Harvard College may not be felt for several more admissions cycles.”

Harvard admitted just 1,970 of its 54,008 applicants. That’s a 3.6% admission rate, making it one of the most selective colleges in the country. In the end, 1,647 students chose to enroll.

Other highly selective schools in the past few weeks reported data that showed greater dips in Black freshmen enrollment following the high court's ruling. In New England, MIT said it admitted just 5% of Black applicants, down from its recent average of 13%. Meanwhile, Black enrollment figures at Amherst College fell from 11% last year to 3% this year. Brown University saw its Black student enrollment fall from 15% last year to 9% this year.

The drop in student diversity this admissions cycle is consistent with patterns that emerged when states like California and Michigan instituted their own affirmative action bans in higher education in the years before the SCOTUS decision.

“We already had a lot of information about what happens at large public universities when these affirmative action bans go into place. The largest declines in Black and Hispanic enrollment tend to happen at more selective universities,” Zachary Bleemer, an assistant professor of economics at Princeton who studies higher education, said in an interview.

Admissions officers no longer can access applicants’ self-reported responses to race on college applications. In a news release, Harvard said it took several steps following the court ruling last year to allow students to more thoroughly reflect on lived experience in the application process.

For instance, one new essay question asked students to reflect on a time they faced conflict and other short essay questions asked them to to reflect on personal experiences.

Hoekstra said that the office has stepped up travel recruitment initiatives to woo new students and “further expanded outreach to rural communities in the South and Midwest, advancing our core goal of encouraging a diverse group of promising students, regardless of background, to consider Harvard.”

Natasha Warikoo, a sociology professor at Tufts University who studies affirmative action, said colleges are trying to operate within the confines of last year's ruling while trying to maintain diversity levels.

"Universities are trying hard to mitigate the impact of this: more financial aid dollars, more money for outreach and bridge programs and supports for students who are first-generation and might come to college without that cultural knowledge," she said.

Other regional schools, meanwhile, have reported increases in student diversity this year. UMass Amherst reported that its Class of 2028 "ranks as the most diverse in the university's history," with the total share of Black, Hispanic, Asian American, Native American and Pacific Islander students rising to 39% this year from 36.6% last year, while 19% of the new class consists of "underrepresented minority students." The school did not provide a further breakdown of numbers by individual race category.