Dear Members of the HarvardCommunity,
Today, the Supreme Court delivered its decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of HarvardCollege. The Court held that HarvardCollege’s admissions system does not comply with the principles of the equal protection clause embodied in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. The Court also ruled that colleges and universities may consider in admissions decisions “an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.” We will certainly comply with the Court’s decision.
We write today to reaffirm the fundamental principle that deep and transformative teaching, learning, and research depend upon a community comprising people of many backgrounds, perspectives, and lived experiences. That principle is as true and important today as it was yesterday. So too are the abiding values that have enabled us—and every great educational institution—to pursue the high calling of educating creative thinkers and bold leaders, of deepening human knowledge, and of promoting progress, justice, and human flourishing.
We affirm that:
- Because the teaching, learning, research, and creativity that bring progress and change require debate and disagreement, diversity and difference are essential to academic excellence.
- To prepare leaders for a complex world, Harvardmust admit and educate a student body whose members reflect, and have lived, multiple facets of human experience. No part of what makes us who we are could ever be irrelevant.
- Harvardmust always be a place of opportunity, a place whose doors remain open to those to whom they had long been closed, a place where many will have the chance to live dreams their parents or grandparents could not have dreamed.
For almost a decade, Harvardhas vigorously defended an admissions system that, as two federal courts ruled, fully complied with longstanding precedent. In the weeks and months ahead, drawing on the talent and expertise of our Harvardcommunity, we will determine how to preserve, consistent with the Court’s new precedent, our essential values.
The heart of our extraordinary institution is its people. Harvardwill continue to be a vibrant community whose members come from all walks of life, all over the world. To our students, faculty, staff, researchers, and alumni—past, present, and future—who call Harvardyour home, please know that you are, and always will be, şÚÁĎÍř. Your remarkable contributions to our community and the world drive şÚÁĎÍř’s distinction. Nothing today has changed that.
Sincerely,
Lawrence S. Bacow
President, HarvardUniversity
Alan M. Garber
Provost, HarvardUniversity
Meredith Weenick
Executive Vice President, HarvardUniversity
Claudine Gay
Dean, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
President-elect, HarvardUniversity
Tomiko Brown-Nagin
Dean, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
Nancy Coleman
Dean, Division of Continuing Education and University Extension
George Q. Daley
Dean, HarvardMedical School
Srikant Datar
Dean, HarvardBusiness School
Emma Dench
Dean, HarvardKenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Francis J. Doyle III
Dean, HarvardJohn A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Douglas Elmendorf
Dean, HarvardKennedy School of Government
William V. Giannobile
Dean, HarvardSchool of Dental Medicine
David N. Hempton
Dean, HarvardDivinity School
Rakesh Khurana
Dean, HarvardCollege
Bridget Terry Long
Dean, HarvardGraduate School of Education
John F. Manning
Dean, HarvardLaw School
Sarah M. Whiting
Dean, Graduate School of Design
Michelle A. Williams
Dean, HarvardT.H. Chan School of Public Health