Looking Beyond Harvard and the SCOTUS Decision
In the wake of the landmark Supreme Court decision ending affirmative action – Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College – many commentators have argued that elite schools will be less diverse going forward. It is unclear whether these fears will come to fruition, however. The Court noted, after all, that colleges and universities may consider “an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.”
In any case, these exaggerated warnings focus on elite colleges and universities. Harvard’s remarkable brand has many virtues, but many schools embrace diversity without resorting to convoluted racial preference schemes; the Court’s decision is of little significance to them.
Indeed, much of the discussion around the Court’s decision fails to note that millions of students flourish in schools not considered elite institutions. Nearly 20 million students attended college in 2020, and only 0.4 percent went to Ivy League schools. Focusing on elite institutions distorts the debate around higher education. Harvard and Yale are world-class centers of research, but stellar teaching and mentorship occur on countless other campuses, which serve as avenues of social mobility for students from all backgrounds.
After teaching at Harvard and Columbia, for the last decade I have taught at Sarah Lawrence College, a small liberal arts school outside New York City. By US News standards, Sarah Lawrence is deemed “more selective,” with an admission rate of about 57 percent. By comparison, Harvard’s admission rate is 4 percent. When admitted to Sarah Lawrence, students are invited to join the community, with an eye toward promoting a “diverse community.” Issues of affirmative action are not in play: the college notes that it “has never relied solely on one single factor when admitting students,” and that it “will continue to ensure that we are recruiting and enrolling as diverse a class as possible in support of our mission.”
Sarah Lawrence students are more diverse in terms of interests, abilities, and background than those attending elite institutions. Freshmen here are not as polished as first-years at Harvard. Their skill sets are in need of more development and fine-tuning. Unlike my many wonderful former students at Harvard and Columbia, for example, my Sarah Lawrence students often look a bit sloppy and unfocused at the start of their collegiate careers, like most college students nationwide. Students may dabble and drift, but many eventually find their purpose and strive to achieve professional and personal goals.
I find it remarkable to watch my students begin their collegiate careers in a somewhat scattered fashion and then watch them grow intellectually and personally over the years. In my tenure at the college, I have helped place students in top graduate and professional schools. Former students of mine are working in varied industries, whether in production and mass media, high tech, or for top law, consulting, and financial firms. Sarah Lawrence and other institutions of higher education may not have the resources to match those of Yale, but our students thrive and move forward.
Numerous studies show how successful non-Ivy League students are today. In fact, most Fortune 500 company CEOs are graduates of non-Ivy schools. Of the 2023 Fortune 100 CEOs, only 11.8 percent attended an Ivy as undergrads, and only 9.8 percent hold an Ivy League MBA.
Many paths to success exist that don’t involve the Ivy League. High schoolers and their families would be well served to remember this. America’s elite colleges and universities are wonderful institutions, but they are not perfect. Competition and stress at these schools is intense. Many – such as Yale and the University of Pennsylvania – have been rightly criticized for limiting free speech and open expression, the very bedrock of a collegiate experience. Now that the Court has struck down affirmative action and its reductionist approach to evaluating students, we should stop paying so much attention to such a tiny subset of schools – and start helping students find the colleges where they can develop, mature, and find their place in the America of tomorrow.
