A year after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled affirmative action in college admissions unconstitutional, the law schools at both universities named as defendants—Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill—admitted fewer Black students this fall than in years past.
Harvard Law School enrolled 19 Black students this year compared to 43 last year, The New York Times reported Monday.
“This obviously has a lot to do with the chilling effect created by that decision,” David Wilkins, a Harvard law professor, told the Times. “This is the lowest number of Black entering first-year students since 1965.” That year there were 15 entering Black students, but since 1970 Harvard Law has typically enrolled between 50 and 70 Black students in its first-year class, Wilkins said.
Hispanic student enrollment at Harvard Law declined by four percentage points—from 63 students last year, 11 percent of the class, to 39—while the number of white and Asian students grew.
The University of North Carolina School of Law in Chapel Hill enrolled nine Black first-year students this year—down from 13 last year—and Hispanic student enrollment dropped from 21 to 13.
But Black and Hispanic first-year enrollment declines were less dramatic at other top-tier law schools. And at Stanford Law School, the number of Black first-year students actually jumped, from 12 last year to 23 this year.
Beyond the most selective law schools, Black students are making gains in representation. Across all 198 accredited law schools in the country, data from the American Bar Association shows that the number of Black students who enrolled in law school this fall increased by about 3 percent over last year, from 2,969 to 3,060.
Those national numbers show “there was no meaningful decline,” Richard Sander, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and an affirmative action critic, told the Times.
He also noted that the data seem to show most law schools haven’t changed their admissions practices and that a drop in Black student enrollment at Harvard and UNC may be a net positive “because those students are going to go to another school where they’re better matched and they’re poised to succeed.”
