The number of Black students entering Harvard Law School dropped sharply this fall after last year’s Supreme Court decision banning affirmative action in college admissions, according to enrollment data released on Monday…
While changes in data calculation might explain some year-to-year changes, the decline at Harvard was much sharper than at other elite law schools. It was notable not only for its severity but also because of the school’s past role in educating some of the nation’s best-known Black lawyers, including former President Barack Obama, the former first lady Michelle Obama, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and the former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson
Charles Hamilton Houston LL.B. ’22 S.J.D. ’23, considered the architect of the legal strategy behind the modern civil rights movement, was the first black member of the Harvard Law Review
The Supreme Court decision, and the fact that Harvard College was named in the case, played a role, according to David B. Wilkins, a Harvard law professor who has studied Black representation in the legal profession….
“This obviously has a lot to do with the chilling effect created by that decision,” Mr. Wilkins said on Monday.
“This is the lowest number of Black entering first-year students since 1965,” he added, pointing to numbers compiled by the Center on the Legal Profession at Harvard, where he also serves as faculty director. …
Mr. Wilkins said the admissions numbers at Harvard illustrated the negative impact of the Students for Fair Admissions litigation and the additional barriers it had created for prospective Black lawyers…
Mr. Wilkins said that professors teaching first-year sections noted a noticeable decline in Black students, particularly a very small number of Black men: six.
The president of the Harvard Black Law Students Association, Sean Wynn, called the enrollment decline a “crushing loss” and referenced the Supreme Court ruling.
“With this marked decline,” he said in a statement, “the ruling has broken something fundamental about the experience of attending this law school.”
Annette Gordon-Reed, Kenneth Mack and David Wilkins discuss the legacy of African Americans at Harvard Law School
https://hls.harvard.edu/today/celebrating-black-history-month-a-look-back-at-historic-firsts/
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