States where race-conscious admissions policies are banned

The use of race in admission review is currently banned by local legislation in eight states: Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, and Washington. In a brief supporting the preservation of Grutter, the University of Michigan notes that after the banning of affirmative action in the state, the University’s Black undergraduate enrollment declined from 7 percent in 2006 to 4 percent in 2021, and its Native American enrollment dropped from 1 percent to 0.11 percent.

In another brief supporting Harvard and UNC, the President and Chancellors of the University of California posit that despite the “institution of numerous race-neutral measures to increase diversity over the past 25 years… [the school system] still struggles to enroll students who can offer underrepresented perspectives, even as California itself becomes more and more diverse.” At the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), the banning of race conscious admission programs led to a significant decrease in Black enrollment, dropping to only 96 Black students in a 2006 freshman class of nearly 5,000. Within the UCLA system, freshmen enrollees from underrepresented minority groups have “dropped by 50% or more at UCLA’s most selective campuses.” Elsewhere in the state, the Black enrollment at any California State University has similarly dropped from 8 percent in 1997 to 4 percent in 2018, as stated in an amicus curiae brief submitted by a group of 25 California-based lawyer and civil rights organizations.