When the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in a landmark 6-3 decision on June 29, 2023, colleges and universities across the country scrambled for a response. Months later, it is clear that institutions of higher education, including Smith College, are still struggling to find a way to ensure diversity.
On Sept. 18, Smith College President Sarah Willie-LeBreton welcomed students, faculty and staff to a panel intended to detail specific steps taken by Smith to ensure applicants of color receive fair consideration. Audience members were invited to voice their concerns following the Supreme Court decision, such as whether Smith will continue to utilize legacy and athletic admissions.
Willie-LeBreton opened the event with a strong condemnation of the Supreme Court ruling, saying “our founding and continuing include both erasure and genocide.” She then asserted Smith’s commitment to act according to the decision, stating that the college will continue “obeying the law” while still “pursuing diversity.”
For many colleges, this phrase encapsulates their struggle to ensure a diverse student body, while no longer factoring race into admissions decisions.
Representatives from the office of Admissions attempted to tackle this issue by outlining some of the steps being taken to welcome diverse incoming classes.
Senior Associate Director of Admission Daisy Ogunedo explained some of these measures, which include a new essay question that will allow applicants to show their “lived experience and expression of self” and the expansion of programs centered around disadvantaged students.
One of these programs is Women of Distinction, which is taking place Oct. 13-14 and Nov. 10-11. The program invites high-achieving students from historically underrepresented backgrounds to visit Smith for a weekend and learn about the opportunities available at the college. The college will also pursue partnerships with organizations such as QuestBridge, an organization that matches low-income students with selective colleges.
Panelist Danielle Holley, Mount Holyoke College President and legal scholar, explained why many minority groups are underrepresented in higher education, from students of color having lower access to Advanced Placement courses to proven racial disparities in SAT testing.
Holley stated more should have been done in the first place to ensure a holistic view of minority applicants. To her, “race-conscious admissions were a very modest intervention,” even before affirmative action was overturned.
Additionally, Holley advocated for the repeal of legacy and student-athlete admissions, saying colleges must focus on “deconstructing the entire admissions system that we currently have.”
However, when asked whether Smith would eliminate legacy and sports admissions by an audience member, Vice President for Enrollment Joanna May neglected to give a clear answer.
According to the 2022-23 Smith College Common Data Set, the college considers alumni relationships as part of admission. May also stated that only five percent of Smith students are legacies.
However, several colleges comparable to Smith have already ended legacy admissions, including Amherst College and Bryn Mawr College.
May declined to confirm whether the college will end legacy admissions, which proved frustrating for some students, as did the strength of the measures proposed by the office of Admissions.
However, the proposed programs are “always going to not be enough,” said Smith student Samantha Sondik ’26.
Sondik emphasized the importance of making minority students feel like they belong, saying the college needs to show “students of color that they aren’t just numbers to make Smith look good.”
“Who is entitled to be in this space?” questioned Holley, echoing Sondik’s beliefs. She emphasized the importance of acknowledging that Smith and other elite colleges historically excluded students of color.
Until the Civil Rights Act of 1964, students of color were largely unable to attend primarily white elite colleges. This legislation set the groundwork for supporting affirmative action by expanding on and enforcing the 14th Amendment, which bars discrimination based on race.
However, many liberal readers of the Constitution note that the 14th Amendment was written to provide citizenship for Black Americans, and therefore believe that the barring of discrimination based on race applies specifically to the discrimination of historically marginalized groups
Smith College Government Professor Claire Leavitt says that the 14th Amendment was explicitly “intended and designed to protect the civil rights of formerly enslaved people.”
However, once the Civil Rights Act was passed, the court began to slowly dismantle affirmative action with cases such as Gratz v. Bollinger and Regents of the University of California v. Bakke.
Despite these cases, Leavitt said the recent decision “was a shock, in that it broke from decades of jurisprudence.”
In the wake of the almost complete dismantling of affirmative action, many students, such as Sondik, want to see colleges explicitly commit to seeking out and admitting students of color.
While Sondik acknowledged that Smith is beholden to the new ruling, she wished the Smith administration would put more emphasis on supporting prospective students of color and announce their intentions to “skirt around” the decision.
When asked for a final comment, Sondik issued a declaration that echoed throughout the event: “”The Court’s ruling is further evidence that the conservative majority is out of touch with the needs of the country and its own constitutional responsibilities under the 14th Amendment.”
