Black student enrollment at Harvard Law took a nosedive after the Supreme Court ruled against race-based admissions last year.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled a major make a statement about positive action in the summer of 2023, rejecting the use of race as a factor in college admissions as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
The New York Times wrote this on Monday reported“Harvard Law enrolled 19 first-year black students, or 3.4 percent of the class, the lowest number since the 1960s, according to American Bar Association data. Last year, the law school’s freshman class included 43 black students. .”
Harvard Law spokesman Jeff Neal said in a statement to The Times that Harvard Law continues to believe that a student body made up of individuals with a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences is an essential part of legal education. He also added that “Harvard Law School remains committed to both following the law and fostering a campus community and legal profession that reflect numerous dimensions of the human experience.”
A woman holds a sign as protesters for and against the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to strike down race-conscious student admissions programs at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina face off, in Washington, U.S., June 29, 2023. REUTERS /Evelyn Hockstein (REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein)
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Neal told Fox News digital that an analysis of the full effect of the Supreme Court’s decision remains “necessarily limited” just one year later.
“When the Supreme Court ruled last year, it was understood that the decision would, in ways that could not be fully anticipated, impact the ability of educational institutions across the country, including law schools, to attract and educate a diverse cohort of students to allow. Neal said.
“The conclusions that can be drawn from one year of data are necessarily limited. We continue to believe that a student body made up of individuals from a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences is an essential part of legal education,” he said. “Harvard Law School remains committed to following the law and fostering a campus community and legal profession that reflect countless dimensions of the human experience.”
But some Harvard faculty have a more negative view, according to The Times.
Harvard law professor David B. Wilkins, who has studied the representation of black people in the legal profession, argued: “This clearly has a lot to do with the chilling effect created by that decision. This is the lowest number of black freshmen since 1965.”
The Times noted that he was specifically referring to “figures collected by the Center on the Legal Profession at Harvard, where he is also faculty director.” That year (1965) 15 black students entered. Since 1970 there have generally been 50. to 70 black students in Harvard Law’s freshman class, he said.”
The same article also summarized that, according to Wilkins, “professors who taught first-year sections observed a noticeable decline in the number of black students, specifically a very small number of black males: six.”
Banners hang in front of Harvard Law School at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA (Reuters/Brian Snyder)
Sean Wynn, the president of the Harvard Black Law Students Association, lamented the drop in enrollment as a “crushing loss,” telling The Times: “With this apparent drop, the ruling has broken something fundamental about the experience of studying at this law faculty. .”
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But the decline in black students is reportedly not the only notable racial impact to result from the Supreme Court decision, as the Times claimed: “The law school also saw a sharp decline in the number of Hispanic students, down to 39 students, or 6.9 percent, this fall. , of 63 students, or 11 percent of the total, in 2023. White and Asian student enrollment increased.”
UCLA law professor Richard Sander, a critic of affirmative action, argued that the demographics show that there are some positive trends at work.
“While some top schools lost Black enrollment, across all law schools, the number of Black students enrolling in law school increased by about 3 percent, to 3,060 this fall, up from 2,969 in 2023, according to the ABA. It was difficult to say whether this was the case. a meaningful increase, partly due to changes in reporting, Mr Sander said,” The Times summarized. “He also noted that the Black enrollment data did not include students who said they were multiracial or declined to report their race.”
“But the real point is that there has been no meaningful decline,” Sander said.
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He reportedly argued that the decline in black enrollment at Harvard Law could actually benefit black students themselves, “because those students are going to another school where they are a better fit and ready to succeed.”
