UNC sees less diversity among new students after Supreme Court ruling

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) released its latest student enrollment data that shows the university is seeing less diversity after the Supreme Court’s 2023 affirmative action ruling.

In the fall of 2023, Black first-year and transfer students made up 10.5 percent of new students at UNC. This year, that number dropped to 7.8 percent.

The number of Hispanic students dropped from 10.8 percent to 10.1 percent. American Indian- or Alaska Native-identifying new students dropped 0.5 percentage points, the university said.

This is the first batch of data gathered after the Supreme Court struck down the use of race as a factor in college admissions, ending decades of affirmative action programs across the U.S.

UNC was one of the schools to bring the case to the high court. The justices concluded that the universities’ admissions practices did not comply with the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection.

Other colleges, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Amherst College and Tufts University, are confirming the worries that arose from the ruling, reporting significant declines in Black and Hispanic populations in the incoming class.

Rachelle Feldman, UNC’s vice provost for enrollment, said in a statement that it’s still too soon to see trends from the ruling with just one year of data. She said the school is committed to making sure students of all backgrounds are able to apply and “have confidence in our affordability.”

While it’s just one year of data, experts are sounding the alarm and calling on administrators to help Black and Hispanic students find alternative routes to seek higher education opportunities.