MIT Diversity Plummets Following Affirmative Action Ban

In the wake of last summer’s Supreme Court decision banning race-conscious admissions, there’s been plenty of speculation on how that ruling might alter the diversity of America’s campuses, especially highly selective institutions — those most affected by this decision.

Now we have one answer thanks to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which recently released a profile of its incoming class of 2028, becoming the first elite school to offer such figures.

Suffice it to say, the data confirms widespread suspicions.

Among students in MIT’s incoming class this fall, 5% are Black, 11% are Hispanic or Latino/a, 37% are white, and 47% are Asian American.

By comparison, of the class of 2027 students who applied before the SCOTUS ruling on affirmative action, 15% were Black, 16% were Hispanic or Latino/a, 38% were white, and 40% were Asian American.

So while the representation of Black and Hispanic and Latino/a students dropped, Asian American numbers increased significantly, and the representation of white students remained relatively constant. In recent years, about 29% of MIT’s students have identified as Black, Hispanic and Latino/a, or Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, and for the class of 2028, that figure fell to 16%.

In a YouTube statement, MIT President Sally Kornbluth said the university’s entering class remains “outstanding across multiple dimensions” and brings an “inspiring influx of new talents, interests, and viewpoints” to campus.

“But what it does not bring, as a consequence of last year’s Supreme Court decision,” she continued, “is the same degree of broad racial and ethnic diversity that the MIT community has worked together to achieve over the past several decades.”

In a Q&A with MIT News, Stuart Schmill, MIT’s dean of admissions and student financial services, emphasized the institution’s commitment to diversity, claiming that as it has become more diverse in recent years, overall student academic performance has improved, as have retention and graduation rates.

Schmill also dismissed any notion that the decline in underrepresented minorities results from MIT’s reinstatement of standardized testing in 2022.

He noted that last year’s class — the one admitted before the SCOTUS decision — had the “highest proportion of students from historically underrepresented racial and ethnic backgrounds in MIT history” largely because testing helped the admissions team identify “objectively well-qualified students who lacked other avenues to demonstrate their preparation.”

This logic echoes what neighboring Harvard University and other elite colleges said when returning to standardized testing over the past year following a COVID-induced moratorium. Many underrepresented students, admissions offices found, were doing themselves a disservice by withholding what would have been highly competitive SAT and ACT scores.

At the same time, MIT differs from most other Ivy-Plus universities in its reliance on the SAT math score to predict success.

Les Perelman, a former associate dean of admissions at MIT, wrote in Inside Higher Ed that “because exceptionally high scores on the SAT math section offer the only standardized indication for all applicants of the extremely advanced mathematical ability that is necessary for success at MIT, it serves a narrow and very limited function for MIT admissions that is unnecessary at most, if not all, other colleges and universities.”

Schmill claims MIT will continue to use standardized tests to identify students who might otherwise not be able to demonstrate adequate preparation for MIT’s rigorous curriculum, adding that it can no longer select “a class that purposefully draws from a broad range of backgrounds.”

One interpretation of this rationale is that underrepresented minority students might now have to score higher on such tests to be competitive.

To ensure the pipeline of prospective MIT students remains as diverse as possible, Schmill said the university has launched new targeted outreach programs in rural communities and is waiving tuition for families earning less than $75,000 annually.

If history is any guide, such measures may not help return MIT to its former levels of racial diversity.

Studies have shown that race-neutral efforts such as “top 10%” programs in states where affirmative action was banned long before the SCOTUS decision haven’t yielded the desired outcomes. Nor have policies using socioeconomic status as a proxy for race resulted in more diverse student bodies.

A study by the Educational Testing Service and The Civil Rights Project titled “Alternative Paths to Diversity” concludes that “there is no demonstrated feasible alternative that would produce the levels of diversity that selective universities find necessary for their educational missions without some consideration of race.”

Another problem with targeting low-income minority communities is the lack of appropriately rigorous preparation in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) disciplines. Schmill points out that among schools where 75% or more of students are Black or Hispanic, two-thirds don’t offer calculus, and more than half don’t have computer science or physics.

Would these students be prepared for the rigors of MIT — or any other intensely demanding STEM program?

Schmill acknowledges that there’s “no quick and easy ‘hack’ to solve for racial inequality,” and similarly elite universities may join MIT in seeing their diversity numbers dwindle now that race can no longer be considered in admissions. Proof can be found in public announcements or in data reports submitted through the Common Data Set or the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS).

Most expected the SCOTUS decision to reduce underrepresented minority populations on America’s elite campuses, and now we’re beginning to see actual evidence.