(AURN News) — Black students are disappearing from America’s most elite campuses. An Associated Press analysis finds that since the Supreme Court’s ban on affirmative action, Black enrollment has plunged in some cases by nearly half.
At Harvard, the percentage of Black freshmen dropped from 18% to just over 11%. Princeton is down to 5%, the lowest since 1968.
Some colleges now report that Black freshmen make up barely 2% of their incoming class. Administrators call it a natural fluctuation, but for many students, it feels like erasure.
One Princeton sophomore, Christopher Quire, told the AP, “If this trend continues, in three years this campus will be as Black as it was in the civil rights era.”
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is ramping up oversight, demanding that schools hand over admissions data to prove they’re not using racial proxies — indirect factors like ZIP codes or school demographics that can mirror racial identity — while diversity advocates warn the crackdown could silence what little inclusion remains.
Click play to listen to the report from AURN White House Correspondent Ebony McMorris. For more news, follow @E_N_McMorris & @aurnonline.
