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Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson backed Michelle Obama’s criticism of isolating students of color at elite colleges during Wednesday’s episode of the former first lady’s podcast, agreeing after Obama said schools failed those students when they spread them thinly across campus.
Jackson said Harvard’s sizable Black community helped her feel at home. Jackson was an undergrad there and also received her law degree at Harvard; Obama also received her law degree there but was a Princeton undergraduate.
“You don’t do kids of color service by plucking them out and making them one of a few, and then scattering them about the campus,” Obama said.
“I think that’s absolutely right,” Jackson said.
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images for The Atlantic)
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Jackson described feeling popular but lonely in high school before the discussion turned to college. She contrasted that isolation with the belonging she found after arriving at Harvard in the late 1980s.
“At the time that I went to Harvard, which, we’re contemporaries in terms of the timing of it, there was a sizable Black community on campus,” Jackson said. “And it was like, I found my people, in a sense.”
Jackson said students in that community shared similar backgrounds and allowed her to feel comfortable being herself. She said she lived with five other Black women and praised the broader community they found on campus.
“The people who had similar life experiences and backgrounds that I had, where you could feel totally comfortable being yourself,” Jackson said. “And my roommates and I… I roomed with five other Black women, and there were six of us on campus, and then we were within this larger community, and it was just amazing.”
Jackson said Harvard University’s sizable Black community helped her feel that she had found “my people.” (Essence Magazine)
Jackson, a 1992 Harvard College graduate, recused herself from the Supreme Court’s case over Harvard admissions because she had served on the university’s Board of Overseers. She participated in the companion University of North Carolina case when the court struck down both schools’ race-conscious admissions programs in 2023.
Jackson joined Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent as it applied to UNC and issued her own opinion warning that the majority’s decision would deepen racial disparities.
“No one benefits from ignorance,” Jackson wrote. “Although formal race-linked legal barriers are gone, race still matters to the lived experiences of all Americans in innumerable ways, and today’s ruling makes things worse, not better.”
Jackson’s remarks came as Harvard faces federal scrutiny over its compliance with the Supreme Court’s affirmative-action ruling. (Maxine Wallace/The Washington Pos)
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Harvard’s reported Black enrollment has declined in both classes admitted since the ruling. Among students who reported their race, Black students accounted for 11.5% of the Class of 2029, down from 14% in the Class of 2028 and 18% in the Class of 2027. Asian American enrollment reached 41% in the latest class, while Hispanic enrollment fell to 11%.
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Fox News Digital reported in February that the Justice Department sued Harvard for applicant-level records to examine whether its undergraduate, law and medical schools comply with the ruling. The department said the lawsuit sought documents and did not accuse Harvard of new discrimination.
“If Harvard has stopped discriminating, it should happily share the data necessary to prove it,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said in a Justice Department press release.
Harvard moved to dismiss the case in June, saying it changed its procedures immediately after the ruling, blocked application reviewers from seeing race check-box information and produced thousands of pages showing its compliance.
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“Harvard is committed to following the law, including civil rights laws in connection with admissions and financial aid, and Harvard has complied with and continues to comply with the law under the Students for Fair Admissions decision,” Harvard said in a February statement to Fox News Digital.