Last year, the Supreme Court ended race-conscious affirmative action in higher education — and on the same day that decision was released, Cornell in a statement pledged to keep diversity central to its mission, reaffirming its founding commitment to “any person … any study.” A University task force on equitable admissions practices went on to recommend a wide-ranging progressive policy agenda for a post-affirmative action Cornell. The proposals included enhancing financial aid, accepting more community college credits and partnering with organizations that support students from “economically under-resourced communities.”
One year on, though, it’s hard to know how much Cornell lived up to its promise of inclusion because the University has yet to release demographic data on the Class of 2028, the first class admitted post-affirmative action.
The latest enrollment statistics from other top colleges, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Amherst, show a worrying trend of declining racial diversity. At both MIT and Amherst, enrollment of new Black, Hispanic and Native American or Pacific Islander students dropped by almost ten percent.
Elite college admissions programs are failing to put together classes that represent the brilliant diversity of America. Instead, they’re perpetuating systems of inequality that go against the purpose of modern liberal education, which is to expose learners to a plurality of perspectives.
Even if other institutions of higher education are falling short, Cornell has a responsibility to uphold its commitment to building diverse classes equipped to solve the diverse set of problems our generation is confronted with. That starts with transparency and taking a serious look at how students are admitted. The University must release the Class of 2028’s demographic data for all the campus community to see.
When our University was founded in 1865, it stood out for its vision of inclusion. The Sun’s question is: Are we still exceptional? If we are, we can serve as a crucial example of how admissions can look in a post-affirmative action world. If not, Cornell has allowed the Supreme Court to strip away its institutional identity in one decision. In either case, there’s no excuse to keep the data under wraps.