Now more than ever, Harvard must tell the truth about admissions | Opinion

The demographics of the first class of Harvard students admitted after affirmative action were as opaque as they were disturbing yesterday.

Without explanation, the College changed the way it calculates the racial demographics of its admitted class, frustrating any attempt at accurate control. Yet what we can piece together from the jumbled numbers seems to confirm what we feared: The Supreme Court’s backward, ill-informed affirmative action decision has really hurt diversity on our campus.

The data released yesterday show a four percent year-on-year decline in the percentage of the class identifying as black, from 18 percent to 14 percent. That’s a drop of more than a fifth and, if the figures obtained by the new methodology are comparable to those obtained by the old, the lowest percentage of black admissions in almost a decade.

The consequences, if this decline continues or becomes more precipitous, will be numerous. A continued decline in Harvard’s black population will widen racial inequality in a country where education is already deeply unequal; exclude talented students who face far greater obstacles on their path to Cambridge; increase the isolation that some black students already feel on Harvard’s campus; and deprive the entire student body of the many well-documented benefits of a diverse learning environment.

And as the experiences of MIT and Amherst College make clear, things could get much, much worse in the new era of college admissions. The two schools saw the share of blacks in their incoming classes decline by 10 and 8 percentage points, respectively.

But don’t be too happy that Harvard hasn’t seen such a steep decline. The new, completely opaque method for calculating demographics makes it hard to say anything with certainty.

For years, the college has calculated racial demographics as a percentage of total admitted students, but this year it coincidentally decided to switch to measuring them as a percentage of students who report their racial background. (Then, coincidentally, the release of admissions statistics was delayed months later than usual.)

Now we understand the need for caution. The past year has made it clear that any sensitive information Harvard releases can and will be used against it. But in this case, it is far more dangerous to withhold it. It is essential for the nation to know how much damage the Court has done and whether its most important university has been able to mitigate its effects.

That should start with properly explaining the methodology shift, but it needs to go further than that. To truly understand the university’s response to this massive change in the way it conducts its admissions, it should finally release information that has long been missing from its press releases about each incoming class.

The two proxies for the socioeconomic status of the incoming class — the percentage of first-generation college students and the percentage of students eligible for Pell Grants — confound a wide range of income levels and are not broken down by race. And the college does not collect information on the percentage of black students who are generationally African American — in other words, who are descendants of American slaves. Without these indicators, it is difficult to truly understand the kinds of diversity Harvard achieves and, just as importantly, the kinds of diversity we may not realize it leaves out.

Fortunately, you don’t need data to see how Harvard can improve. For starters, it could finally abolish legacy admissions — an outdated, unfair policy that’s getting harder to justify by the day — and reconsider the extent to which it favors athletes and donors, which also disproportionately benefit wealthy, white applicants. And it could give applicants more than a lukewarm boost because they come from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds.

It is the Supreme Court that has jeopardized the diversity of our college, but the responsibility to respond lies with Harvard. It can start by telling the truth.

This editorial staff represents only the majority opinion of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. To ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to voice their opinions and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

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