Reaffirming our commitment to diversity [by Stu Schmill '86](https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/author/stu/) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- in uncertain times _As we_ [_conclude our work with the Class of 2027_](https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/mit-regular-action-decisions-now-available-online-6/)_, and turn our attention to the class of 2028 and beyond, I want to take a moment — [alongside President Kornbluth](https://president.mit.edu/writing-speeches/thoughts-upcoming-supreme-court-decisions-may-affect-admissions) — to reaffirm our commitment to diversity in a time of great uncertainty about the future of affirmative action, and to explain⁠[01](#annotation-1) In addition to the main text of the post, if you see any text highlighted in transparent red — like “explain” is, here — you can hover over it on desktop (or tap, on mobile) to see a related annotation on the right hand side of the post (or inline, on mobile; note that the desktop/mobile UI is triggered by the width of your browser). The annotations are numbered, and repeated as endnotes at the bottom of the blog. We use this feature to add additional commentary, evidence, and background information throughout the post, in case readers want to explore more context than we could reasonably fit into the main body of text. We do encourage you to read the footnotes; we’ve done our best to show our work in them. more about_ [_how a diverse student body advances our education_](https://mitadmissions.org/policies/#diversity:~:text=walk%20of%20life.-,Statement,-on%20the%20role). Last fall, the Supreme Court [heard arguments](https://www.oyez.org/cases/2022/20-1199) in [two cases](https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/01/court-will-hear-challenges-to-affirmative-action-at-harvard-and-university-of-north-carolina/), brought by the [same plaintiff](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_for_Fair_Admissions), about whether and how colleges and universities may consider race in the admissions process; a ruling is expected sometime in June.⁠[02](#annotation-2) The Supreme Court does not announce when it will release its decisions in particular cases in advance, so we don’t know when this will be. However, decisions are typically released by the end of June, and the Court usually announces in advance which days it will be posting decisions (without specifying which cases will be decided that day). You can see a calendar of these dates — and copies of opinions, once they are posted — at SCOTUSblog, and follow along at home just like we are. As my colleague Chris [wrote](https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/amicus-briefs-and-the-abcs-of-a-diverse-mit/) about [the amicus brief MIT submitted](https://ogc.mit.edu/latest/mit-submits-supreme-court-amicus-brief-harvardunc-admissions-cases) in these cases, arguing the Court should conserve the existing legal framework: > Affirmative action is legally complicated, politically controversial, and widely misunderstood. Under the currently controlling precedent, _Grutter v. Bollinger_ (2003), universities are allowed to consider race _only_ to the extent — and only for the _reason_ — that it is “narrowly tailored…to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body”⁠[03](#annotation-3) In other words, we cannot preferentially select students of certain races in order to redress historic or contemporary disadvantage, nor are we permitted to mechanistically give ‘points’ to students solely because they are from under-represented backgrounds despite other deficiencies in their application. Sweeping measures like those — rooted in attempts to broadly redress inequality and advance justice — have been legally prohibited for decades. As the law stands now, the only reason we may narrowly consider race for individual students in our process is because of the cumulative benefits of diversity on the student body — and the wider world — benefits that have been recognized in the Court’s precedent for more than half a century. by ensuring there is a “critical mass”⁠[04](#annotation-4) ‘Critical mass’ is a metaphor — best known in nuclear physics — that suggests a minimum necessary amount of material to support a self-sustaining chain reaction capable of generating tremendous additional power. In our work, it means we cannot have quotas or targets for any racial or ethnic group, but we can take steps to pursue minimally sufficient populations to collectively advance our educational mission. In our diversity statement, we try to give meaning to ‘critical mass’ as such: “Every student should feel that ‘there are people like me here’ and ‘there are people different from me here.’ No student should feel isolated; all students should come into contact with members of other groups and experience them as colleagues with valuable ideas and insights.” of students from underrepresented backgrounds, and _only_ if they can demonstrate that no other workable methods can achieve that critical mass.⁠[05](#annotation-5) In other words, under current law, if there were other, race-neutral, methods to achieve a diverse student body sufficient to produce these educational benefits, we would be required to use those instead, and required to not consider race. For many years, we have admitted students to MIT consistent with the approach prescribed by _Grutter_. ⁠[06](#annotation-6) As we say in our policies, “In undergraduate recruitment and selection, MIT looks at each application holistically, taking account of many different factors that have shaped a student’s experience, including their racial, ethnic, social, economic, and educational context. We believe it is crucial for the successful future of our world to educate people from every walk of life.” This and other statements on the relevance of diversity to MIT’s educational mission have been developed in close consultation with CUAFA, our student-faculty advisory committee. In this blog post, I use “affirmative action” and “race-conscious admissions” interchangeably, as the litigation does. The former is a general term describing a broad class of approaches that intentionally seek diversity; the latter is how we do it in our specific professional context. Alongside considerable investment in our outreach and recruitment programs,⁠[07](#annotation-7) We put a lot of thought and effort into trying to identify and support students from under-represented and/or under-served backgrounds who are strong matches for the MIT education. This includes (but is not limited to) partnering with MIT summer programs, targeting travel to regions and high schools that would benefit most from our physical presence, and working with our alumni to run affinity programs like WISE, Sin LiMITe, and Ebony Affair that help students learn about, and find community at, MIT. We also work with well-matched partner organizations like QuestBridge, College Horizons, and more to help their students learn about what MIT is like. Meanwhile, our generous need-based, full-need, no-loan financial aid ensures that everyone who is admitted to MIT can afford to attend; we distributed more than $153 million in scholarship grants to our undergraduates last year alone, and about a third of our undergraduates paid no tuition at all. our ability to (narrowly) use race in the pursuit of the educational benefits of diversity has enabled us to enroll cohorts of MIT students that have become progressively more diverse⁠[08](#annotation-8) What it means for a class to be “more diverse” is a complex and contested question. For the purposes of this post, we mean we work to improve the recruitment and enrollment of well-matched and academically prepared under-represented minority students — as well as other students who are less commonly present in our applicant pool — to the point where MIT obtains a critical mass sufficient to provide the educational benefits of diversity consistent with Grutter. Demographically speaking, there is no majority race or ethnicity at MIT, and a majority of our students are either immigrants or the child of at least one immigrant. Of course, diversity across many axes of identity, experience, and perspective is required to achieve educational benefits consistent with our mission, which is why we actively pursue all of them in our recruitment and selection, including through our partnership with QuestBridge, our membership in the <

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