Two years after the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard ruling — a case brought by Asian American plaintiffs aggrieved by college admissions practices — Asian Americans on both sides of the debate are wrestling with the question: What comes next?
Many Asian American students, researchers, and parents are searching for answers amid the Trump administration’s ongoing crackdown on diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher education. In March, the federal government launched investigations into dozens of schools for their DEI practices, accusing them of using “racial preferences and stereotypes in education programs and activities.”
The Trump administration has in particular lasered in on Harvard, targeting the university’s DEI efforts and accusing administrators of allowing a culture of antisemitism on campus. Trump has demanded Harvard install merit-based admissions reform and merit-based hiring reform, and shutter DEI programs, or else lose billions in research funding.
And while the university has tried to resist those demands, there have been cracks. In April, the university renamed its main DEI office to “Community and Campus Life.” In July, the school’s undergraduate college closed its offices for minority students, women, and LGBTQ students, and reassigned staff to a newly established Office of Culture and Community. The university has been stripping messaging on its websites related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
In fall 2024, among Harvard’s roughly 7,000 undergraduate students, about 30 percent identified as white, 9 percent identified as Black, 24 percent identified as Asian, and 12 percent identified as Hispanic or Latino, according to school data.
Trump has referenced the Supreme Court ruling in his threats to revoke federal funding for schools with DEI programs, arguing that universities have discriminated against white and Asian students on the basis of race.
For many critics, both the Supreme Court decision and Trump’s anti-DEI campaign create a “false narrative of undeserving Black, Latino, and Native students versus very deserving white and Asian students,” said OiYan Poon, co-director of the College Admissions Futures Co-Laborative based in Illinois, which advocates for equity in higher education.
“It’s really pitting people against each other,” Poon said.
Removing race-conscious college admissions was just the “tip of the spear,” said Annie Lee, a 2014 Harvard Law School graduate. She is managing director of policy for Chinese for Affirmative Action, a San Francisco-based advocacy group founded in 1969.
Trump, she said, is “going for everything,” not just college admissions. She pointed to Trump’s sweeping book bans that target content related to race and gender and restrictions for international students.
“[Those on the right] say race blindness when it benefits them,” Lee said. “Then they use race consciousness when they want to come after us and accuse us of being national security threats.”
In 2023, the affirmative action lawsuit placed Asian Americans at the center of a decades-long national debate over admission policies.
Led by conservative activist Edward Blum, anonymous Asian American plaintiffs sued Harvard for racial bias in undergraduate college admissions. Compared to other racial groups, Asian American applicants to Harvard consistently received lower scores on an assessment of their personal qualities, such as integrity, fortitude, and empathy, according to an analysis of student records by Students for Fair Admissions.
Blum had unsuccessfully challenged such admission practices before the Supreme Court in 2012, when he led a lawsuit against the University of Texas. The plaintiff in that case was white.
“It’s easier to make a case about racial discrimination when your plaintiff is a racial minority,” said Natasha Warikoo, a professor of sociology at Tufts University.
Experts said it’s unclear whether Asian American enrollment increased significantly after the Supreme Court ruling. Across 30 universities, Asian American enrollment in the class of 2028 increased by 1.4 percentage points compared to the average for the classes of 2026 and 2027, the Globe previously reported.
“It’s actually pretty safe to say that at most places, the changes [for Asian Americans] are really pretty small,” said James Murphy, of Education Reform Now, a left-leaning education nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., and New York that has been tracking school enrollment numbers by race since the Supreme Court decision.
It’s too early to tell what the long-term impact of the decision will be, but recent data shows variation across schools. At Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, the percentage of Asian American students in the class of 2028 increased by 57 percent, compared to the average for the classes of 2026 and 2027. At Harvard, numbers decreased by 8.4 percent.
At Brown University, which Trump has also targeted with claims of antisemitism, Asian American enrollment in the class of 2028 went up by 14 percent, compared to the average of the two years prior. In July, Brown struck a deal with Trump to hold onto its federal funding and promised to share admissions data for federal review of merit-based compliance.
Murphy said almost all highly selective institutions had drops in Black enrollment. White and Hispanic enrollment budged slightly, both declining 1 percent across 30 schools, the Globe’s analysis found.
Opinions on affirmative action among Asian Americans have long been somewhat divided, but the majority backed it in the past. Roughly 69 percent of Asian Americans supported affirmative action policies, 19 percent opposed, and 11 percent did not know, according to Asian American Voter Surveys from 2014 to 2022, which polls registered AAPI voters every two years.
Asian Americans for and against the policy agree: Anti-Asian racism exists. They just disagree on how to address it.
Many opponents of DEI admissions policies say addressing anti-Asian discrimination requires ending race consciousness. They believe in “merit-based” college admissions, with an emphasis on test scores, which they say serve as the most objective measure of an application’s strength.
“Racial consideration is wrong,” said Swan Lee, who lives in Brookline and is an organizer with the Asian American Coalition for Education, a group that opposes affirmative action.
“We can try to improve our circumstances by studying hard. … That’s within our control,” Lee added.
On the other side, proponents say confronting anti-Asian racism requires focusing on larger systems of inequality, including the absence of Asian American history in curriculums and exclusionary immigration policy, while also building solidarity across racial lines. They call for a reexamination of legacy admissions, which evidence shows benefits white, affluent applicants.
“Criterias are being set and shifted to prevent a more racially diverse classroom, instead of putting priority and weight on students with legacy,” said Jaya Savita, the director of Massachusetts’ Asian Pacific Islanders Civic Action Network, an advocacy group. “This policy decision, this overturning, is not a win. It’s a profound loss for our communities.”
As Harvard students returned to campus this fall, Kyomitmaitee said, many Asian American students and others from traditionally underrepresented communities expressed concern about what could happen to resources on campus geared toward women, racial minorities, and LGBTQ students.
“Students still carry such a strong sentiment for wanting to uphold diversity,” she said. “I don’t think that’s ever really changed.”
Jessica Ma can be reached at jessica.ma@globe.com.
