Elite colleges see Black enrollment drop after affirmative action strike-down

Enrollment for Black students fell at two elite US colleges in the first class since the supreme court’s decision last year to strike down affirmative action in college admissions and upend the nation’s academic landscape.

Amherst College and Tufts University, both in Massachusetts, reported a drop in the share of Black first-year students, an early sign that the high court’s ruling could negatively affect racial diversity in the US’s more selective colleges and universities, according to the New York Times.

In June 2023, the US supreme court, driven by its conservative supermajority, ended race-conscious admissions at universities across the country in a move that dealt a substantial blow to the cause of greater student diversity on campuses, which critics warned would have far-reaching effects throughout society.

The share of Black students at Amherst College for the incoming freshman class decreased by eight percentage points, from 11% last year to 3% this year, the data showed. The percentage of Hispanic students dropped from 12% to 8%.

Related: What was affirmative action designed to do – and what has it achieved?

Meanwhile, the percentage of white students at Amherst College rose sharply, from 33% to 39%, and the percentage of Asian American students rose slightly, from 18% to 20%.

Black students in Tuft University’s incoming class of 2028 fell from 7.3% to 4.7% – while white students went up from 46.8% to 49.3%. The percentage of Asian American students decreased slightly from 20.3% to 19.7%.

The data comes after the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) announced a sharp fall in admissions from “members of historically under-represented racial and ethnic groups” last week, making it the first major US university to release statistics on the composition of its freshman class since the supreme court ruling.

According to MIT’s admissions department, the percentage of Black students enrolled this year dropped from 15% to 5%, and the percentage of Hispanic and Latino students dropped from 16% to 11%.

In a statement to students obtained by the Times, Amherst’s dean of admissions, Matthew L McGann, acknowledged that “as a consequence of the supreme court’s decision, the incoming class is not as racially diverse as recent classes have been”.

Admissions data for Harvard University and the University of North Carolina – the two institutions at the center of the supreme court ruling at issue – have yet to be released.