Several top U.S. colleges are reporting lower Black enrollment following the Supreme Court’s affirmative action ruling, which limits public institutions from considering race in admissions.
Amherst College, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Washington University in St. Louis are among at least six schools that have seen a decline in Black student enrollment for the 2024 academic year.
Mount Holyoke College President Danielle Holley noted that the court’s ban on asking about race in admissions has forced schools to rely on outreach programs, personal statements, and other application materials to achieve diversity goals.
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“The feeling was pretty catastrophic,” Holley said of the ruling. “It fundamentally changed the application process,” she added. “That demographic information that used to be readily available in a student’s file is now masked.”
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The ruling was aimed at affirmative action programs at the University of North Carolina and Harvard, with widespread implications for other universities. The court determined that the schools’ programs violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution, rendering them unlawful.
According to data released last month, MIT reported that about 5% of its incoming class of 2028 is Black, compared to an average of 13% in recent years. Amherst College saw a significant drop, with Black students making up 11% of the class of 2027, but only 3% for the class of 2028. At Smith College, 4% of the incoming freshman class is Black, compared to 4.6% the previous year.
However, some schools, like Yale University, have maintained steady Black enrollment, while others, such as Sarah Lawrence College, have seen slight increases.
Flematu Fofana, a freshman at Yale, recalled crying when she heard the Supreme Court’s decision. Although she excels academically, Fofana, who is Black, worried that her high school lacked the extracurricular activities and awards that other applicants to top colleges had.
“Without affirmative action, I felt so uncertain about how my college decisions would turn out,” she said. “It made me change my strategy when applying to colleges.”
Fofana, who comes from a predominantly white county in Maryland, added: “Initially, I based my school list on how much I aligned with the academics and extracurriculars. But after the decision, I started realizing how much I value diversity.”
Washington University in St. Louis and Tufts University experienced a 4 and 2.6 percentage-point drop, respectively, in Black first-year students. JT Duck, dean of admissions at Tufts, reflected on the Supreme Court’s impact.
“We now have our first entering class selected consistent with the court’s guidance,” Duck said. “The percentage of U.S. students of color in this year’s class dropped from about 50% last year to 44% this year. While still higher than 38% in 2019, it’s a disappointing decline,” he told TuftsNow.
Asian American enrollment also decreased at Smith College, Yale, and Tufts for the class of 2028.
The Supreme Court ruling was hailed as a victory by those opposed to race-based admissions and seen as a setback for colleges aiming to diversify their predominantly white student bodies.
This ruling follows the efforts of conservative activist Edward Blum, who spearheaded the challenge to affirmative action in college admissions. Blum’s group, Students for Fair Admissions Inc., accused Harvard and the University of North Carolina of discriminating against Asian Americans while favoring Black and Latino students. Some Asian Americans criticized these claims, arguing that Blum exploited their concerns to dismantle affirmative action and incite racial tension.
Blum told NBC News that MIT students, one of the first to release demographic data for the class of 2028, “will know they were selected based on their academic and extracurricular achievements, not the color of their skin.”
He praised schools for adopting race-neutral strategies to promote diversity.
“If colleges start casting a wide net in areas they haven’t traditionally looked for students, it benefits the entire student body and strengthens our social fabric,” Blum said.
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