Letter to the Editor: Admissions — Clarity, Resolve, and Compassion

I write regarding the article “Students and Administrators Reckon with a Less Racially Diverse First-Year Class.” While the students quoted provided thoughtful commentary and insight, overall this article failed to engage with the serious matter at hand: a drastic decline in the share of Black students in the incoming class from 11% to 3%. Instead, it merely put a light gloss on the administration’s preferred narrative: that this is sad and disappointing and we will do better.  Administrative responsibility is neither mentioned nor accepted, and the severity of the decline is hidden.

A share of Black students of 3% in the incoming class must be understood properly. This is, by a good margin, the lowest share of Black students at Amherst College in the last half century.  It is also the lowest by far among our peer institutions. We must sit with that, we must face that, and this administration and Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Matthew McGann must own it.

Our peer institutions — including Williams, so like us that they could be our twin — did so much better. Why? Based on my experience engaging with Amherst Admissions over the past two decades, I believe two dynamics may be important.

First, facing a new regime, our admissions office may have chosen — for this was a choice, we cannot pretend otherwise — a posture of fear. Afraid to consider racialized experiences as part of a holistic review of applications, applicants could not be seen or appreciated fully. Afraid to use social science knowledge to better shape outreach, Amherst did not develop or pursue new ways to reach beyond spheres of privilege. Afraid to acknowledge the ways our process disproportionately benefits white people, Amherst left systems of race and class privilege in place while largely removing the policies intended to offset them.

In this defensive crouch, Amherst performed much, much worse. The national media is consistently listing Amherst as the poster child for a huge decline. Other institutions appear to have creatively designed ways to comply with Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (SFFA) while also maintaining institutional objectives of a thriving and diverse educational community. To imagine that all of these other colleges and universities got bad legal advice is preposterous. It is insulting that this excuse is being circulated. Moreover, this narrative does further holistic damage to college diversity writ large.

Second, I believe that Amherst’s insular and fearful approach can be traced, at least partially, to a desire to shield Amherst’s robust athletics recruitment process. This process is consequential: It fills approximately one-third of the incoming class; offers extensive personal attention; follows an earlier timeline, with decisions mostly complete by July; involves only limited materials such as transcripts and test scores rather than a full application; and disproportionately benefits affluent white men, who are two to four times as likely to benefit from this channel. Protecting athletics recruitment is protecting white privilege.

I have long argued that such a process, effectively segregated by race and class, is inconsistent with Amherst’s values. Two years ago, with SFFA on the horizon, I argued that a choice to continue athletic recruitment as is — a separate track benefiting those who are already privileged — would be a choice to amplify the existential threat posed by the likely demise of race-conscious affirmative action.  I believe, sadly, that this is precisely what we are seeing now. This choice had a direct effect and an indirect effect — direct as it always had, and indirect in that the refusal to be transparent meant the walls around the Office of Admission had to be kept up: data not shared openly, faculty committees resisted, and alternate narratives curated.

In a complicated landscape, these choices were crucial in leading Amherst to this ignominious last place. The leadership of Amherst College must acknowledge what has just happened. They must start by acknowledging that it did not just happen. It was chosen. By them. Nice words and sad musings cannot hide this, and they most certainly cannot fix it. A good hard look could start with the committed journalists at The Amherst Student bringing a critical journalistic perspective to tell this story, but it must continue with all of us.

I believe there are many ways our community might envision an admissions process that lives our values. We could redeploy resources to focus on social justice rather than athletics, to bolster the Center for Community Engagement as a recruiting hub rather than the Department of Athletics, to creatively seek and enthusiastically recruit students from everywhere with all sorts of interests. We could build a process in which all applicants are given the same fair and equitable consideration via a holistic review, whatever their interests, life stories, passions, and accomplishments. The possibilities are limitless. We have done well at times in the past, and this year our peer institutions offer countless examples of innovative success.

At this critical juncture, under the leadership of President Michael Elliott, his administration, the Board of Trustees, and Dean McGann, Amherst College has betrayed our values. If we want to build a future for a diverse multiracial and thriving Amherst, we must face the present and the future together with clarity, compassion, and resolve.