How Harvard's good intentions ended up hurting Asian-Americans, merit

Did Harvard's affirmative action policies disadvantage Asian-American applicants? The university's latest admission figures show Asian-American representation at a record high, while Black student enrolment has fallen for three consecutive years. Meanwhile, Hispanic student representation has declined overall since the US Supreme Court struck down race-conscious admissions in 2023.

Three years after the US Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in university admissions, Asian-American representation in Harvard's incoming class has reached a record high. Meanwhile, Black student representation has declined for three consecutive years, while Hispanic or Latino representation has fallen overall since the ruling, following an initial increase. This reveals how Harvard's affirmative action went against merit and Asian-Americans.

According to data released by Harvard University, Asian-American students accounted for 43.2% of the incoming Class of 2030, which enrolled 1,648 students from a pool of 55,104 applicants. Black or African-American students accounted for 9.3% of the class, while Native American, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander students made up 2%.

Harvard's racial and ethnic data cover US citizens and permanent residents who chose to report their race or ethnicity. Students may select more than one category and can therefore be counted in multiple groups.

According to data cited in Harvard Magazine's analysis of the university's admissions records, Asian-Americans accounted for 3.4% of students admitted in 1980.

Their share rose to a peak of 22.5% in 2014, before standing at 20.6% in 2019. In the Class of 2027, the last class admitted before the US Supreme Court struck down race-conscious admissions in June 2023, Asian-American students accounted for 29.9% of those admitted.

Since then, the share of Asian-American students among those enrolled has risen. They accounted for 37% of the Class of 2028, enrolled in 2024, and 41% of the Class of 2029, enrolled in 2025. The figure reached 43.2% in the Class of 2030, according to data released by Harvard on October 27, 2026.

At the same time, the representation of other races has seen a concurrent decline since the 2023 ruling.

Black or African-American students accounted for 18% of the Class of 2027, falling to 14% in the Class of 2028, 11.5% in the Class of 2029 and 9.3% in the Class of 2030.

Hispanic or Latino representation initially rose from 14% in the Class of 2027 to 16% in the Class of 2028, before falling to 11% in the Class of 2029 and standing at 11.4% in the latest class.

This raises a central question: Did Harvard's race-conscious admissions policies disadvantage otherwise qualified Asian-American applicants? To answer that, it is necessary to examine how the university's affirmative action policy worked, the discrimination allegations brought against it, and why the US Supreme Court struck down the policy in 2023.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY'S AFFIRMATIVE ACTION POLICIES, AND WHY WERE THEY STRUCK DOWN?

According to a 2022 report in The Harvard Gazette, "race is just one factor is determining what makes an applicant unique and what they might bring to the Harvard community".

Other factors that go into determining an applicant's eligibility listed by the report include "academic achievements and extracurricular activities, personal essays, recommendations from teachers and guidance counsellors, and applicant interviews", that are considered by a "diverse 40-person committee".

The report also attested that the US Supreme Court "for more than four decades upheld policies like those at Harvard, which consider race as one factor among many in admissions, and recognised that schools have a compelling interest in achieving the benefits associated with a diverse student body".

It was this policy of including race in the factors determining an applicant's eligibility that was challenged by Students for Fair Admissions (SFAA), an organisation founded by affirmative-action opponent Edward Blum.

The SFAA alleged that Harvard's admissions process discriminated against Asian-American applicants, arguing that they received lower personal ratings and faced disadvantages compared with other applicants.

Initial rulings took the side of Harvard. In 2019, a federal district court found insufficient evidence of intentional discrimination against Asian-Americans. The appeals court upheld that decision.

However, on June 29, 2023, the US Supreme Court ruled against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.

The court held that their race-conscious admissions programmes violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Harvard, as a recipient of federal funding, was also subject to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits racial discrimination by federally funded institutions.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts argued that the universities' admissions policies failed to meet the constitutional requirements for using racial classifications. He wrote, "Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it."

The court also held, "An individual's race may never be used against him in the admissions process."

The majority opinion referred to a finding from the lower-court proceedings that Harvard's consideration of race had reduced the number of Asian-American students admitted by an estimated 11.1%.

However, the Supreme Court did not find that Harvard had deliberately designed its policy to exclude Asian-Americans. Rather, it ruled that the university's use of race in admissions failed to satisfy the legal requirements governing race-conscious selection.

The decision did not prohibit universities from considering how an applicant's racial background had shaped their individual experiences. Instead, Roberts wrote that applicants must be assessed "based on his or her experiences as an individual — not on the basis of race".

Although the lower courts had found insufficient evidence of intentional discrimination against Asian-American applicants, their representation among Harvard's enrolled students has risen since the Supreme Court ruling, while the share of Black students has declined.

The ruling has nevertheless fuelled debate over whether Harvard's previous admissions system disadvantaged Asian-American applicants. Writing on X, David Lat, an Asian-American lawyer, author and columnist for Bloomberg Law, pointed to the latest enrolment figures and wrote, "This suggests that Harvard, prior to the US Supreme Court's decision in SFFA, had a heavy thumb on the scale against Asian-American applicants."

The latest figures offer a fresh measure of how Harvard's student demographics have shifted since the 2023 ruling.

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(Written by Shounak Sanyal)