Washington, November 19 (The Conversation) When the Supreme Court struck down race-based admissions at American colleges and universities a little over a year ago, many predicted that US campuses would become far less diverse. But due in part to students choosing not to disclose their race or ethnicity, along with universities’ selective use of the statistics, it’s unclear how much the decision has affected diversity on campus.

As institutions of higher education begin to report the racial makeup of the class of 2028 — the first to be affected by the 2023 decision — the data is difficult to interpret, confusing and inconclusive.

Students do not identify with the given options. Some students may not select a racial or ethnic category because they don’t think either category really fits. For example, before multiracial students could select “one or more,” an option that became widely available in 2010, they were more likely to decline to identify their race or ethnicity. Some have even boycotted check boxes entirely.

Other students do not consider their race important: 67% of students who select “race and ethnicity unknown” are white. Of those students, 33 percent say race and ethnicity are not a relevant part of their identity, one researcher found in 2008.

The number of students who do not answer questions about race or ethnicity — and are listed in the “race unknown” category — is increasing. At Harvard University, for example, the percentage of undergraduates “of unknown race” doubled from 2023 to 2024.

As the number of students of “unknown race” increases, not only does it become harder to determine the ethnic and racial diversity of a student body, but so does the impact of banning race-conscious admissions.

Fearing Discrimination, Students Don’t Disclose Race Some students believe their race or ethnicity will affect their chances of admission.

This is especially true at many selective institutions, which have higher non-response rates than less selective institutions, about 4% compared to 1% to 2%.

My research shows that students are even more likely to submit race or ethnicity identification at selective law schools, where race and ethnicity could be used among a variety of admissions criteria before the Supreme Court rules against the practice. An average of 8 percent of students at these schools chose not to identify, compared to 4 percent at less selective law schools.

‘We’re very diverse’: University decisions skew statistics What a university chooses to report will also affect the demographics the public sees about its student body. Harvard, for example, does not report its proportion of white students.

Some institutions use statistics strategically to appear more diverse than they are. These strategies include counting multiracial students multiple times—once for each selected race—or including international students as a separate category in demographic charts. The greater the number of differently colored sections on the chart, the more demographically “diverse” an institution appears to be.

Impact of Supreme Court Ruling: A Clearer Picture Coming Soon While universities don’t all report their student demographics the same way in their own materials, they all must report the same way to the federal government — namely, its Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System , better known as IPEDS. The next IPEDS report on characteristics for the entering class of 2024 is expected to be released in the spring of 2025. Once that data is available, a better picture of how the Supreme Court’s decision has affected diversity in college enrollment should emerge. .

This clearer picture may not last long. In 2027, the federal government will require colleges and universities to make changes to how they report student race and ethnicity. Among the changes is the addition of a Middle East and North Africa category. Under the current standard, students from the Middle East and North Africa are considered white. As a result, white enrollment at some colleges and universities will appear to decline after 2027.

The new standards will also change how universities treat Hispanic or Latino ethnicity on application forms. Today, if students self-identify as Hispanic and White, they will be classified as Hispanic. If students select Hispanic and White in 2027, they will be classified as multi-racial. The revised categories will cloud the impact of the Supreme Court decision. A drop in the number of Hispanic students reported could be due to the court’s decision. Or it may result from the new way students will be counted.

Until universities and colleges adapt to the new guidelines for collecting and reporting race — and as long as students refuse to provide their racial identities — the full effect of the ban on race in college admissions will remain at best a cloudy picture. (Conversation) SCY SCY

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