Supreme Court Affirmative Action Ruling Had Small Impact on Minority Enrollment, New Study Shows
A new report from the Manhattan Institute analyzed the demographics of freshman enrollment at universities nationwide after the Supreme Court banned racial preferences in its Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (2023) decision and found a small decline in black and Hispanic enrollment, accompanied by a modest increase in white and Asian students. However, some schools were outliers and showed increases in black enrollment or decreases in Asian enrollment.
“The changes varied immensely across individual schools, with some seeing little change or even shifts in the unexpected direction, which does not prove noncompliance but warrants further scrutiny,” reads the report titled “The Students for Fair Admissions Fallout: An Analysis of Freshman Enrollment by Race,” written by Manhattan Institute fellow Robert VerBruggen and published on Thursday.
Schools receiving federal funds are required to submit data to the federal government’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). Preliminary figures on the students who enrolled in fall 2024 — the first class affected by the SCOTUS ruling — are now available, which the new Manhattan Institute report says allows for more comprehensive analysis of demographic trends. The IPEDS database also includes various test-score metrics, which were compiled by the researcher to develop an index that ranks schools by academic selectiveness. The data included in the analysis ranged from 2010 to 2024. International students and undergraduates who did not disclose their race were removed from the report’s main analysis.
The report analyzed data from more than 1,000 four-year colleges across the country and divided them into six categories by academic selectiveness, as measured by the test-score index: The eight Ivy League schools, the non-Ivy schools that fall into the top 30 universities, the rest of the top 100 schools, the rest of the top half, the bottom half, and military schools.
The report found similar patterns at the Ivy League and the top 30 non-Ivy institutions. The share of black freshmen fell by about three percentage points and the Hispanic share fell roughly two points, while both white and Asian students saw two-point increases.
However, the report notes that some universities maintained similar demographic distributions despite the new ban on affirmative action. And, in some cases, black enrollment increased while the Asian student populations fell.
“Yale, Princeton, and Dartmouth saw little change in their share of incoming students who are black. . . . Northwestern increased its black share from about 10% to 13% in these data (though less dramatically, from 14% to 15%, in its own tally reported in autumn 2024),” says the report. “Meanwhile, Asian student shares actually fell at some schools, including Yale (29% to 24%), while rising markedly at others, such as Columbia (from 24% to 32%).”
The report notes that data, expert analysis, and briefs submitted during the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard case argued that the black share of students would fall substantially — by more than half at Harvard specifically — if the universities had to abandon affirmative action and change nothing else in their admissions practices.
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“It would be unfair to assume that elite schools are cheating unless their black student shares fall to almost nothing—but it is fair to be skeptical if they report little change at all,” reads the report.
At less selective schools, the demographic changes were “small to nonexistent.” “Most U.S. colleges admit most students who apply, and schools that engage in less selection necessarily had less leeway to practice affirmative action even before the ruling,” reads the report.
The report also analyzed demographic trends with respect to schools changing their requirements for applicants to submit test scores as a result of the 2020 pandemic; some schools have since reimplemented their requirement for test scores.
“Test-score requirements do correlate with reduced black and Hispanic enrollment, with the most dramatic effects seen in top-half schools and very little apparent effect on white students at any type of school,” says the report. “Asian enrollment at more selective schools may increase as well, alongside a more surprising decline at less selective schools that impose testing requirements.”
The report found that the number of students who declined to declare their race increased after the Students for Fair Admissions Decision. Additionally, there was a reduction in applications to elite schools when test-score reporting is required.
The Department of Justice has recently concluded its investigations into the admissions practices at the Yale medical school and UCLA medical school, determining that both discriminate in favor of black and Hispanic applicants and thus are violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
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