MIT’s Drop in Black Students Shows Fallout From Top Court Ruling (3)

The share of Black students in the incoming class at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology plummeted after the Supreme Court effectively banned considering race as a factor in undergraduate admissions last year.

The university said Wednesday the class of 2028 is 5% Black, down from an average of 13% in recent years. The share of Hispanic students in the class is 11%, down from 15%, MIT said.

Meanwhile, Asian Americans will make up 47% of MIT’s incoming class, up from 41%. Students for Fair Admissions, the group that brought the Supreme Court case against Harvard and the University of North Carolina that led to the ruling against affirmative action, had argued that the schools penalized Asian Americans during the admissions process.

Read more: Wall Street’s DEI Retreat Has Officially Begun

MIT’s numbers indicate how last year’s Supreme Court ruling is posing a challenge for universities to meet their diversity goals. Considering race in admissions has long been controversial. Schools have argued that it helps them build diverse student bodies, while detractors contend the policies unfairly discriminated against Asian and White students. A Pew Research Center survey published last June showed half of adults say race and ethnicity should not be a factor in admissions decisions at selective colleges, while one-third approved.

In recent years, around 25% of enrolling undergraduate students at MIT have identified as Black, Hispanic, and/or Native American and Pacific Islander. For the incoming class of 2028, that number is about 16%. The percentage of White students was little changed at 37%.

The Supreme Court’s decision sent shockwaves through the world of higher education, forcing administrators to plot new strategies to meet diversity goals. Stu Schmill, MIT’s dean of admissions, said in a blog post that the school had expanded recruitment efforts and financial aid initiatives in a bid to “improve access to students from all backgrounds.”

“If MIT cannot find a way to continue to draw on the full range of human talent and experience in the future, it may threaten the qualitative strength of the MIT education, both by a relative reduction in the educational benefits of diversity and by making our community less attractive to the best students from all backgrounds,” Schmill said.

Corporate Backlash

While the court’s decision applied to college admissions, the backlash against affirmative action has spread to corporate America, with a series of lawsuits and employment complaints putting diversity, equity and inclusion policies under the microscope too.

Over the past year or so, business leaders across corporate America have become increasingly cautious about promoting their DEI initiatives publicly, some striking references to terms such as “anti-racist,” “unconscious bias” and “mandatory allyship” from regulatory filings.

The changes were made as conservative groups mounted legal attacks and prominent businesspeople from Bill Ackman to Elon Musk added to an intensifying backlash against DEI policies. Even so, US companies say they remain committed to workforce diversity, and a majority of Americans continue to support DEI programs, with a Washington Post-Ipsos poll in April finding 61% of adults think DEI programs in the workplace are “a good thing.”

It’s also clear that MIT thinks it has work to do as it tries to meet diversity goals.

“Now that the class of 2028 has enrolled, the impact is clear, and it is concerning,” Sally Kornbluth, the school’s president, said in a statement.

(Updates with details and background throughout.)

--With assistance from Nabila Ahmed.

To contact the authors of this story:
Francesca Maglione in New York at fmaglione2@bloomberg.net

Janet Lorin in New York at jlorin@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Craig Giammona at cgiammona@bloomberg.net

Jeremy Hill

© 2024 Bloomberg L.P. All rights reserved. Used with permission.