For the first time in 380 years, Harvard University is expecting an incoming class with a majority of nonwhite students, TIME reports. According to The Boston Globe, 50.8 percent of this year’s Harvard freshmen are considered minorities. 22.2 percent of these accepted minority students are Asian American, while the rest of the pool consists of African Americans, Latino and Native American or Pacific Islander.
The record appears after a report from earlier this month claimed that the U.S. Justice Department would investigate universities for discriminatory affirmative action admissions policies against white applicants. The account, showing President Donald Trump’s conservative influence on the nation’s civil rights work, was actually a job posting asking for someone to research one complaint about admission committees discriminating against Asian-American students. The admissions procedures of Harvard, along with other Ivy League schools, were mentioned in the complaint.
“To become leaders in our diverse society, students must have the ability to work with people from different backgrounds, life experiences and perspectives,” Harvard spokeswoman Rachael Dane said in a statement. “Harvard remains committed to enrolling diverse classes of students. Harvard’s admissions process considers each applicant as a whole person, and we review many factors, consistent with the legal standards established by the U.S. Supreme Court.”
While these statistics are definitely a step in the right direction in today’s society, GOOD Magazine pointed out that the students’ economic backgrounds were not revealed. Quoting writer Cord Jefferson, the article read, “While America’s most elite colleges do in fact make it a point to promote ethnic diversity on their campuses, a lot of them do so by admitting hugely disproportionate numbers of wealthy immigrants and their children rather than black students with deep roots—and troubled histories—in the United States.”
Although Harvard has an Undergraduate Minority Recruitment Program, the points made about both sides of this enrollment news are worth discussing.
