Asian population rises from 40% to 47% in one year
Black population sharply drops from 15% last year to 5% this year
Following the abolition of the minority preference policy known as 'Affirmative Action,' the results of this year's U.S. college admissions show that the admission rate of Asian American students at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has noticeably increased, while the number of Black and Latinx students has sharply declined.
According to the freshman statistics released by MIT on the 22nd (local time), the proportion of Asian Americans among the total student body rose to 47%, up 7 percentage points (p) from 40% last year. Nearly half of this year's MIT freshmen are Asian American.
While the number of Asian American students increased, the numbers of Black and Latinx students significantly decreased. The proportion of Black/African American students dropped sharply from 15% last year to 5% this year, a 10%p decrease, and the Hispanic/Latinx proportion fell from 16% last year to 11% this year. The proportion of White students slightly decreased from 38% last year to 37% this year, while the percentage of international students with non-U.S. citizenship slightly increased from 10% last year to 11% this year.
On the 21st, the U.S. daily newspaper The New York Times (NYT) reported that MIT is the first major university to disclose racial statistics of its freshmen following the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling banning 'Affirmative Action.'
In June last year, the U.S. Supreme Court abolished 'Affirmative Action,' which favored non-White students in college admissions. The newspaper reported that the proportion of minority students such as Native Hawaiians, Black, and Hispanic among this year's MIT freshmen is 16%. This is a significant decrease compared to the roughly 25% level maintained in recent years.
Previously, some Asian American and White students opposed the minority preference policy, arguing that "racial considerations prevent fair evaluation of merit." They organized a group called Students for Fair Admissions (SFA) and filed lawsuits against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, resulting in a ruling declaring the policy unconstitutional. Consequently, Affirmative Action, considered one of the achievements of the 1960s civil rights movement, was banned in colleges after more than 60 years, and universities can no longer award bonus points favoring minority students in admissions.
Regarding the MIT freshman racial statistics, Edward Blum, founder of SFA, emphasized, "All students admitted to MIT will now know that they were accepted based solely on their outstanding academic and extracurricular achievements, not their skin color." On the other hand, MIT President Sally Kornbluth told the NYT, "Due to last year's Supreme Court ruling, it is regrettable that we were unable to secure the same level of broad racial and ethnic diversity that the MIT community has worked together to achieve over the past several decades."
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