How the End of Affirmative Action Is Affecting Indigenous Students

This fall, there’s been much hand-wringing, data parsing and speculation across higher ed about the fallout of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling last summer that ended affirmative action. As predicted, some highly selective higher ed institutions reported significantly less racially diverse incoming classes this year after they rolled back race-conscious admissions strategies.

These national conversations rarely touch on enrollment trends among Indigenous students—but they should, advocates say, because Native American enrollment rates have been falling steeply for years. And the bits of enrollment data starting to trickle out of colleges and universities show that multiple selective universities experienced drops in first-year Native American students’ enrollment this fall.

Amherst College, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cornell University and the University of Virginia saw their already small percentages of first-year Native American students cut roughly in half. Harvard University saw a small dip as well, from 1.2 percent last fall to 1 percent this fall. Similarly, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill saw first-year Indigenous enrollment drop from 1.6 percent to 1.1 percent.

“We see the numbers are going down, and it’s so disheartening and discouraging,” said Angelique Albert, CEO of the Native Forward Scholars Fund, a major scholarship provider for Indigenous students.

Cheryl Crazy Bull, president and CEO of the American Indian College Fund, which provides scholarships and programming to support Native college students, was also disturbed by the affirmative action decision, though she noted that “a limited number of Native students actually go to highly selective institutions.”

A 2023 report by the Brookings Institution, a public policy think tank, found that the kinds of institutions that attracted the most Native Americans and other minority students were less likely to use race as a factor in admissions than highly selective institutions. Indigenous students largely attend public four-year universities, community colleges, tribal colleges and universities and Native American–serving nontribal institutions, a federal designation for institutions with student bodies that are at least 10 percent Native American.

But the reports coming out of selective institutions are still concerning to students and their supporters. Although the enrollment losses reported so far might seem modest, advocates worry the Supreme Court decision risks exacerbating the already staggering downward trend in Native American participation in higher ed.

Indigenous students’ enrollment nationally dropped 40 percent between 2010 and 2021, amounting to a loss of tens of thousands of students, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics. Only 16 percent of Native Americans age 25 to 64 hold a bachelor’s degree, a recent report from the Campaign for College Opportunity showed.

“The barriers to getting into college have been hard enough,” Albert said. Even before the court ruling, Indigenous students already faced stiff challenges to pursuing higher education. Research by Albert’s organization and others shows financial barriers are the No. 1 obstacle to Native American students getting to and through college. A 2022 survey of 5,321 Native students receiving scholarships from Native Forward and other Indigenous scholarship providers found that 65 percent had annual household incomes below $35,000.

“There are Native students who deserve to go to college, who want to go to college, who are primed to go to college,” she said. These students “are people who just need access … and once they get access, they go on to do amazing things.”

Applying to college was already a challenge this year for many Native American students. Because they disproportionately need financial aid to afford higher education, many had to muddle their way through the bungled rollout of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid. First-year enrollment over all dropped sharply this year, and lagging FAFSA completion rates appear partly to blame.

Meanwhile, state bills targeting diversity, equity and inclusion efforts are stripping some colleges of resources and supports that draw Native students and encourage them to stay enrolled. Some universities have closed campus cultural centers, while others have dissolved DEI offices or amended scholarships to get rid of race-based eligibility requirements (over the protests of some donors).

“A lot of our scholars are first-generation college-going students … a primary thing that they need is support services,” Albert said. So, the loss of cultural centers and other targeted supports “significantly impacts our students’ ability to succeed.”

Crazy Bull also worries about campuses feeling less welcoming to Native students. “Whether or not Native students actually benefit from affirmative action—we don’t really know that they do—we do know that campus climate, campus culture and a welcoming educational environment impacts their participation,” she said.

Derrick Platero, a Navajo Ph.D. student studying soil science and hydrology at Iowa State University, said he was saddened by the Supreme Court decision and also by Iowa’s recent anti-DEI bill as one of the university’s few Native students. Native Americans only make up 0.1 percent of the graduate and undergraduate students at Iowa State, according to university data.

Platero said Indigenous students like himself with small Native communities on campus already felt isolated. “I worry about the impact this will have on Native students and other underrepresented groups who rely on these safe spaces for support and community,” Platero said. “I feel like safe places are slowly disappearing, and I fear this will make university life more challenging for students of color.”

What Colleges Can Do

The Supreme Court ruling quashed, or at least called into question, tools that colleges and universities have historically used to ensure diversity among their incoming students.

Admissions officials might feel like their hands are tied when it comes to enrolling more Indigenous students, but Albert said that’s not the case. “There are so many things that these universities can be doing to draw in and increase that Native head count,” she said.

She advocates for a build-it-and-they-will-come approach, saying Native American students will continue to be attracted to colleges and universities that are known to offer resources and a sense of community through Native representation among faculty and administrators, robust Indigenous student groups, cultural events, and other supports, including scholarships.

In response to the Supreme Court decision, higher ed institutions have been cutting back on race-based scholarships, but those offered to Native American students aren’t actually race-based, Albert noted—a distinction sometimes lost on higher ed officials trying to comply with the affirmative action ban.

“We have a unique political affiliation—we are sovereign nations within a nation,” so these scholarships are offered to students as “citizens of nations,” not as members of a particular race or ethnicity, she said. “So, we do work with universities to help them understand that historical context.”

Keri Risic, executive director of undergraduate admissions at the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus, said her university immediately brought its admissions practices into alignment with the Supreme Court decision, but its ongoing recruitment strategies for Native American high school students are still allowed and paying off. The university’s percentage of Native American first-year students has increased for the past five years; this year’s class has 116 Indigenous students, compared to 95 last year.

Admissions officials at UMTC maintain relationships with Native American high school counselors, pay visits to high schools and make presentations to students about community engagement opportunities for Native students on campus. The university has a support office for Indigenous students called the Circle of Indigenous Nations. The state also launched the American Indian Scholars Program last year, a free college program that pays for all tuition and fees, before financial aid or any other grants are applied, for members of federally recognized tribes at Minnesota public universities.

The goal of these outreach efforts is to “help Native learners explore the campus community and learn about campus resources and community-building opportunities on campus” as early as ninth or 10th grade, Risic said.

The university’s application also includes a question about how students might benefit from—or contribute to—the university’s diverse community, The Minnesota Star Tribune noted, an approach that other universities have also used to promote diversity without running afoul of the Supreme Court decision. (The application also includes an optional question that gives applicants the opportunity to share their race or ethnicity, not with admissions officials but other university staff in order to be connected to specific resources or community activities.)

Crazy Bull said one of the ways her organization is addressing the ruling is by helping high school students find ways to talk about their Native identities and experiences in their applications.

Under the ruling, students can’t check a box, but they can still “tell their story,” she said. “Their stories are often rooted in economic experiences that … would reveal their tribal experience.”

Platero, the grad student at Iowa State, said he hopes colleges and universities will still be able to find ways to “support students from all backgrounds, fostering environments where everyone feels included.”

“Speaking for me and other people who are Native, it’s hard for us to leave home because we love our parents and our homeland so much,” he said. “But when we get the opportunity to go into higher education, it’s like a big milestone for us … I just feel like students are going to be missing out on that opportunity for education, and it’s just really sad to see.”