On June 29, 2023, Anthony Monaco, Tufts’ outgoing president, and incoming president Sunil Kumar co-signed a message sent to the entire Tufts community. In this email, the two addressed breaking news coming out of the Supreme Court: Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard had been decided in favor of the plaintiff, ending affirmative action at private universities across the United States. Both Monaco and Kumar stressed that Tufts had advocated against this decision, and they stayed true to the Tufts spirit, stating, “we must—and we will—respect the law, but nothing the court said today will change our institutional values and our commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.” Now, almost three years later, we as the editorial board want to evaluate whether Tufts has stayed true to its ethos.
When it comes to the university itself, there are two major areas in which undergraduate students can observe commitments to diversity in real time. Students looking to attend Tufts are most impacted by admission statistics. Once they are on campus, they see diversity in action through our Division of Student Diversity and Inclusion centers.
Fair Admissions v. Harvard, as well as Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina, had the most substantial impact on admissions. Since 2023, Tufts has been unable to ask any identifying questions about race to applicants, and this has hindered the university’s ability to curate a racially diverse class. In 2024, Tufts gained national attention when it was announced that the percentage of Black students enrolling dropped from 7.3% in the class of 2027 to 4.7% in the class of 2028. That same year, enrollment declined for Asian Americans and Indigenous students but increased slightly for Hispanic/Latine students. These numbers were similar for the class of 2029, with Black students increasing enrollment from 4.7% to 6%. While we do not have enrollment data for the newly admitted class of 2030, we expect numbers to stay relatively stable.
Because the admissions system cannot ask questions pertaining to race, they have instead focused on increasing socioeconomic diversity and geographic diversity. Around 15% of admitted students in the class of 2030 are eligible for federal Pell Grants. Twenty-three percent of high schools that had a student accepted had either not sent an application to Tufts within the past five years or had never sent in an application. Eleven percent of the class will be first-generation college students. All fifty states had at least one student admitted, as well as three of the five U.S. territories. These figures, alongside Tufts’ new tuition pact, show that the university is dedicated to increasing diversity and access, even with federal roadblocks.
It can be argued that the beating heart of Tufts’ campus are the eight DSDI centers. Serving Africana, Asian American, first generation, Latinx, LGBTQ+, fem-identifying, Indigenous and minority in STEM students, the centers act as both physical homes for students as well as active programming hubs. Each center puts on events regularly, with some hosting events multiple times a week. Students can intern at the centers, gaining work experience while cementing their role within their community. Students who are not directly served by each center are welcomed, and student groups affiliated with the centers often hold events for the broader community.
Through student clubs and identity center programming, students are actively engaged in a diverse student body. Not only do students get to soak up the benefits of a diverse community, but they also have administrators dedicated to helping them succeed, additional student resources and, in some cases, housing. The centers also help students stay civically engaged, with students learning how to work across organizations to maximize student opportunities. And sometimes, the centers are there to provide fun distractions from the necessary academic grind.
Without the identity centers, and the diverse array of students they serve, Tufts would not be the campus it is. And without Tufts’ commitment to diversity, all of its other priorities — like civic engagement, academic innovation and collaborative physical spaces — would be missing an essential element that helps students succeed. We are proud of Tufts’ resilience and commitment to diversity, in all its forms, and cannot wait to welcome the Class of 2030 to campus this fall.
