This article is one of a series of articles produced by The Seattle Medium through support provided by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to Word In Black, a collaborative of 10 Black-owned media outlets across the country.
By Aaron Allen, The Seattle Medium
On June 29, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision addressing two cases that challenged affirmative action in higher education, Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions, Inc.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned affirmative action in collegiate admissions, right-wing legislators and white supremacy groups have worked diligently to topple equity, diversion, and inclusive policies and practices in academia and even into corporate America.
While many colleges say they are committed to diversity, the Education Trust (Ed Trust), an organization that is a fierce advocate for the high academic achievement of all students, particularly those of color or living in poverty, believes that college leadership has lost a key tool for creating more diverse student bodies.
Many schools, particularly private institutions, are now reneging on other diversity initiatives and scholarships for fear of further litigation.
According to Gabriel Montague, the report author and research analyst for Ed Trust and Nichols Fellow Omar Ibrahim, the historical foundation of many private schools benefitted from the labor of enslaved people.
“The goal is not to increase representation at private institutions with this research and policy recommendations. With private schools specifically, when you think about Ivy League institutions, even more specifically, 8 of those 9 institutions were colonial colleges, meaning they were created before the declaration of independence, and they relied on the wealth generated from owning Black enslaved people and Native American enslaved people; many of these people are the ancestors of students who institutions are not admitting,” says Montague. “Thinking about the benefits of going to private and elite colleges that are in our research analysis, these graduates tend to have higher earnings; they tend to dominate the political and economic ruling class. When you look at our presidents, vice presidents, and chief and associate justices of the Supreme Court, over half of them are graduates from the nation’s elite and private institutions.”
“The Ed Trust is committed to advocating policies and practices to demolish the economic and racist barriers entrenched in the United States’ education system,” Abrahim adds.
Through their research and advocacy, Ed Trust looks to improve equality in education from preschool through college, increase political and public will to build an education system where students will be successful, and engage diverse communities dedicated to education justice and equity.
In the report, ‘Segregation Forever’?: The Continued Underrepresentation of Black Undergraduates at the Nation’s 122 Most Selective Private Colleges and Universities, which is the continuation of their 2020 report on the deficiency of Black and Latino students at public flagships, Ed Trust observed how access for Black students has changed at selective private institutions over the past two decades.
“In the wake of the SCOTUS ban on affirmative action, it’s more essential than ever that campus leaders strategically and intentionally prioritize antiracism and diversity from the earliest stages of recruitment through completion,” says Montague. “We must acknowledge the facts presented in our data, which show this underrepresentation of Black students at these elite private institutions has persisted for decades, long before the 2023 ban.”
Unfortunately, according to the analysis, the findings were not reassuring. The report revealed that although Black enrollment in colleges and universities has grown in recent decades, African American students remain underrepresented at the nation’s 122 most selective private colleges and universities. And they say the Supreme Court decision overturning affirmative action in higher education admissions will likely exacerbate the environment.
According to the report, while nearly 74% of the institutions have increased their Black undergraduate student enrollment since 2000, the findings show that these increases were slight, and that overall, very little progress has been made.
Still, the majority of the nation’s selective private colleges and universities remain inaccessible for Black first-time, full-time undergraduate students. But these statistics also cross over into public institutions as well.
The report provides a variety of recommendations for collegiate leaders and lawmakers on ways to raise the percentage of Black students at these institutions, including developing recruitment strategies that expand access, leveraging federal accountability, increasing standards for accreditation organizations, and assessing and improving campus racial climates.
“We do emphasize and fully endorse that this problem is not just isolated in private institutions, but there are going to be implications for public institutions as well,” says Montague. “Most of these students aren’t getting admitted at high rates into private institutions because of the selection criteria and because of the institutional biases and systematic racism that exist already.”
“This is a follow-up on a previous report by Dr. Andrew Nichols who did focus on the public schools, so this is taking our analysis a step further and diving into the private schools which hasn’t been done previously,” Ibrahim adds.
According to Ed Trust, Black students already face many barriers to accessing and completing a higher education. And that has implications for the nation’s labor force, which is becoming more diverse, and the country as a whole. Yet, there is debate that if Black students’ minds are bright, does it really matter where they go to school to achieve in this life? Montague argues that this theory matters.
Ed Trust’s report suggests that a failure to support and resource Black student access and completion could damage the labor supply in high-end fields such as education, law, medicine, and engineering, which are already experiencing critical shortages.
“It absolutely matters where students attend school,” says Montague. “Every institution is different, every student is different, the academic and social needs; there is no one correct answer for anyone. Also, as a huge proponent of HBCUs, I definitely think that there are benefits to looking at HBCUs more given the prestige of our HBCUs; we built those schools for ourselves with their rich histories. But those institutions should not be the only institutions that we have access to.”
Representation matters. Without Black doctors, Black mortality will rise; without Black lawyers, discrimination and injustice in the legal system will persist, and Black students will suffer without Black teachers. Colleges and universities are tasked with educating and preparing future workers and leaders; it’s high time for them to admit and ensure the progress of Black leaders for the America we live in, not contribute to the expansion of our Jim Crow past.
According to Ed Trust metrics, all eight Ivy League institutions earned D or F grades for Black access from 2000-2020. Although these numbers aren’t surprising, they paint a disturbing picture, especially “given that more than 300 years ago, some of these selective private institutions owned more Black enslaved people than they enrolled students, and now they are enrolling more legacy students than Black students,” Montague said. “We cannot allow this to continue.”
