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MIT reports less diverse incoming class due to the end of affirmative action
The released demographic data is one of the first following the Supreme Court’s decision.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology released its first demographic data for its incoming class on Wednesday, following the Supreme Court’s decision to end affirmative action in college admissions. The result is a class that is less diverse than in previous years.
MIT’s dean of admissions and student financial services, Stu Schmill, told MIT News that 16% of enrolling undergraduate students in the Class of 2028 identify as Black, Hispanic, Native American, or Pacific Islander. This percentage has decreased from 25% in recent years.
The university attributes the decline to the Supreme Court’s ruling last June that struck down affirmative action in college admissions. The decision declared that race can no longer be a factor in admitting students and challenged higher education institutions to find new ways to achieve diverse student bodies.
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“We expected that this would result in fewer students from historically underrepresented racial and ethnic groups enrolling at MIT,” Schmill said in MIT News. “That’s what has happened.”
Schmill noted that, based on empirical data and personal experience, education is stronger when a student body is above a “high bar of academic excellence” and “broadly diverse.”
Schmill also said the school needs a diverse student body to attract the best students, who, in surveys, have noted that attending a diverse institution is important to them.
Before the Supreme Court decision, the school was able to use race as a factor to identify students who came from unequal K-12 educational environments.
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Even though the school did not solicit race or ethnicity information from applicants this year, Schmill said, there is “no doubt that we left out many well-qualified, well-matched applicants from historically under-represented backgrounds who in the past we would have admitted – and who would have excelled.”
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