With Merit Back At The Fore, MIT’s Black Enrollment Plummets, Asian Share Leaps

The composition of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s incoming freshman class is vividly reflecting the effect of the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision banning affirmative action — with the share of spots given to black people down sharply, while Asian enrollment has jumped. “Every student admitted to the class of 2028 at MIT will know that they were accepted only based upon their outstanding academic and extracurricular achievements, not the color of their skin,” Edward Blum, who founded the Students for Fair Admissions group that was victorious in the Supreme Court case, told the New York Times. 

MIT’s class of 2028 is only 5% black compared to 15% for the class of 2027. Hispanic and Latinos comprise 11%, down from 16%. The white share dropped a percentage point — from 38% to 37%. As anticipated, the big winners are Asian applicants, who, despite being minorities themselves, were abused by the affirmative action regime. Asians represent 47% of the new class, up from 40%. (The numbers don’t add up to 100% because of students whose heritage spans more than one group.) 

Talking to the Times, MIT president Sally Kornbluth described the class of 2028 with notes of sorrow:

“The class is, as always, outstanding across multiple dimensions. What it does not bring, as a consequence of last year’s Supreme Court decision, 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 other words, if Kornbluth could have it her way, MIT’s freshman class wouldn’t have as many Asians — merits be damned. 

MIT is the first major university to release demographic stats on its entering class, so there will be more shoes to drop in the coming days and weeks. MIT’s numbers will serve as something of a benchmark — if other universities show much smaller changes, they’ll face accusations that they’re finding other ways to discriminate against Asians for the benefit of blacks and Latinos — and perhaps litigation as well.   

In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling, advocates of rigged admissions seized upon language in the decision that seemed to leave a back door open for factoring race into acceptance considerations. The court said applicants should still be free to draw attention to their race if they did so in the context of describing their life experiences — such as dealing with discrimination. 

Many highly selective schools have jumped on that angle. Johns Hopkins’ application, for example, asks applicants to “tell us about an aspect of your identity (e.g. race, gender, sexuality, religion, community, etc.) or a life experience that has shaped you as an individual…” Rice University asks, “What perspectives shaped by your background, experiences, upbringing, and/or racial identity inspire you to join our community of change agents at Rice?” To encourage applicants to emphasize their race, Sarah Lawrence even cites the Supreme Court decision in an essay application prompt, the New York Post reported.

Do you approve or disapprove of Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action?

White: 65% approve, 23% disapprove
Hispanics: 45%-30%
Blacks: 43%-36%

Both sexes, all races, every age group, every level of income. All reject race-based governance. https://t.co/a74PiCnGBh pic.twitter.com/VF2qDVBZ0p

— Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) July 9, 2023

MIT, however, seems to be an exception. Duke economist Peter Arcidiacono, who served as an expert witness for Students for Fair Admissions, told the Times he said he was pleasantly surprised to conclude MIT didn’t choose a new way to rig the game against Asians. “From the looks of it, MIT basically just took race out of the equation,” he said. 

However, at least one data-driven observer feels even a 5% black share of MIT’s newest class indicates some kind of intervention to on their behalf:  

As the race-specific freshman class enrollment figures start trickling in, keep these data in mind so that when you see blacks are 5% of a class at a highly-selective school (as they are at MIT) you’ll realize that these schools are still engaging in affirmative action. pic.twitter.com/GytDbJhv77

— i/o (@eyeslasho) August 21, 2024

Finally, here are some additional attributes of MIT’s class of 2028: 

• The most popular names are Eric and Sophia
• The most-represented US state is California
• 11% are from foreign countries
• 3% have a gender identity other than man or woman
• 67% graduated from public schools; less than 1% were home-schooled 
• The school’s admission rate is about 5%