Harvard’s Black Student Enrollment Dips After Affirmative Action Ends

The predictions were dire. In the course of a bitterly contested trial six years ago, Harvard University said that if it were forced to stop considering race in admissions, the diversity of its undergraduate classes would be badly compromised.

Now, a year after the Supreme Court struck down the school’s admissions system, effectively ending affirmative action in college admissions everywhere, the numbers are in for the first class to be admitted, and the picture is more nuanced and complex than predicted.

The proportion of Black first-year students enrolled at Harvard this fall has declined to 14% from 18% last year, according to data released by the institution on Wednesday — a dip smaller than the school had predicted, but still significant.

Asian American representation in the class of 1,647 students remained the same as last year, at 37%. Hispanic enrollment has gone up, to 16% from 14%. Harvard did not report the share of white students in the class, consistent with past practice, and it is hard to make inferences because the percentage of students not disclosing race or ethnicity on their applications doubled to 8% this year from 4% last year.

The post-affirmative-action demographic breakdowns have been trickling out over the past three weeks, and overall Black students appear to have been most affected. The percentages of Black students declined sharply at some elite schools, although surprisingly, they held steady at others. The suit against Harvard had accused it of discriminating against Asian Americans to depress their numbers, while giving preferences to members of other minority groups.

Admissions experts suggested even before the new numbers came out that the most coveted schools, like Harvard, Yale University and Princeton University, would be best positioned to maintain their Black enrollment because the students who were admitted to them were very likely to accept. So in that view, they are unicorns, part of a highly selective ring of schools that scooped up the top students and remained relatively unaffected by the ban on race-conscious admissions.

Schools that were slightly less selective — like Amherst College, Tufts University and Brown University — saw bigger changes to their demographics.

Harvard did not offer any analysis of the numbers. But it did stress the steps it had taken to beef up recruitment, like sending admissions staff to more than 150 cities, joining a consortium of public and private universities recruiting in rural areas and increasing financial aid.

c.2024 The New York Times Company. This article originally appeared in The New York Times.