Supreme Court Rulings on College Admissions

Dear Highlanders,

Today, the United States Supreme Court issued a ruling in cases brought by the anti-affirmative action group Students for Fair Admissions against both Harvard University and the University of North Carolina. The cases alleged that these institutions discriminated against certain applicants by unfairly prioritizing underrepresented minority applicants in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The court’s rulings today stated that admissions policies considering an applicant’s race as one factor among many are violating the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Though NJIT should not be affected, because our admissions process is of a holistic nature and predominantly focused on assessing a student’s ability to succeed at our university, the court’s decision presents a broader concern.

While race should never be used as a condition to preclude anyone from opportunities, institutions of higher education must seek to construct learning environments that provide maximum benefit to their students. Diversity of all types–racial, gender, cultural, socio-economic, religious, etc.–is essential for the optimization of the educational experience and is something we value deeply at NJIT. I often mention that diversity is among our university’s greatest strengths, because it has been documented exhaustively that diversity contributes to positive learning outcomes and that work teams consisting of individuals with varied backgrounds, perspectives, ethnicities, races, belief systems, cultures, and socio-economic statuses are proven to achieve greater results than those that lack such diversity. This is because learning happens when we are exposed to a broad array of perspectives and have the opportunity to share information and knowledge gathered through our lived experiences. This is evident in what we see every day at NJIT.

Sincerely,
 

Teik C. Lim

NJIT President