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The incoming cohort of first-year students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is less diverse than in previous years, according to demographic data the institution released Wednesday.
MIT is the first highly selective institution to release such data, which covers the first class admitted to college since the Supreme Court ruled in June 2023 that affirmative action in admissions is unconstitutional.
Stu Schmill, MIT’s dean of admissions and student financial services, said that only about 16 percent of the incoming freshman class identifies as Black, Hispanic, Native American or Pacific Islander, down from 25 percent in recent years.
The proportion of white students stayed roughly the same, 37 percent, compared to 38 percent last year, while the percentage of Asian American students in the class rose from 40 percent to 47 percent.
The Supreme Court’s ban on considering race in college admissions was based in part on lawsuits filed against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill by Students for Fair Admissions, which claimed that the institutions had discriminated against Asian American applicants.
Schmill attributed the decline in diversity directly to the Supreme Court decision.
“We expected that this would result in fewer students from historically underrepresented racial and ethnic groups enrolling at MIT,” Schmill said in a Q&A published by the university. “That’s what has happened.”
