New numbers from two major Illinois universities show little change in enrollment demographics since the Supreme Court effectively banned consideration of race during college admissions last year.

Nationally, many feared that the ruling in this case, brought by conservative legal activist Ed Blum and his group Students for Fair Admissions, would cause a precipitous drop in the representation of black and Latino students in colleges. very selective colleges.

But now that the first freshmen admitted under the new legal precedent have started classes, enrollment data from their universities, including local schools like Northwestern University and the University of Illinois at Urbana -Champaign, show mixed results.

HAS Northwest15% of this year’s freshmen identify as black, up from 14% last year. The percentage identifying as Hispanic or Latino is 18%, up from 17% the year before. The Evanston campus counts multiracial students in every racial category with which they identify, which is different from how the federal government and many other institutions report these numbers.

Northwestern officials said in a statement that the Supreme Court’s decision does not change the university’s commitment to diversity and inclusion.

“We are intensifying strategic efforts that have helped us enroll historically diverse classes in recent years,” said Stacey Kostell, Northwestern’s vice president and dean of enrollment. “This includes financial aid programs that meet 100% of each student’s demonstrated need without loans, as well as initiatives to ensure families understand our full range of affordability measures and student support resources.” »

At University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignThe percentage of freshmen who identify as black decreased slightly, from 5.4% to 4.9%, and the percentage who identify as Hispanic increased slightly, from 15% to 15%. 9%.

“As we welcome our largest graduating class in college history, we are at a point of transition for our university,” Kevin Jackson, vice provost for undergraduate education, said in a statement. “Our new approach is more representative of a student’s entire identity and better reflects the world we live in.”

The University of Chicago declined to share admissions and enrollment statistics for the Class of 2028.

James Murphy, policy director of the nonprofit Education Reform Now, said journalists, administrators and advocates must cautiously interpret the new enrollment data in relation to the race-conscious admissions decision .

“There are a lot of concerns,” said Murphy, who advocates for equitable access to college. “The most important thing is that it’s very early, right? The published data is therefore preliminary data from the colleges. These numbers will change as students inevitably move from not identifying their race on their application to identifying their race when registering. And probably the most important concern of all: it only lasts one year.

WBEZ higher education reporter Lisa Kurian Philip sat down with Murphy to talk about the first graduating class admitted following the controversial decision. Their conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.

There has been a lot of media coverage on the racial demographics of the freshman class this year. Why was there so much interest? The institutions affected by the decision are tiny in terms of the percentage of students they enroll.

On the one hand, should we have been so curious about the outcome of the (Students for Fair Admissions) decision? Perhaps not, in the sense that most students were not affected by it. Most higher education establishments have not been affected by this.

On the other hand, these small number of universities send a lot of students to politics, entrepreneurship, law schools, medical schools, and doctoral programs, and so they are important in that sense. And this was the first year they admitted a class without…the power…to consider race in the admissions process.

Is there something that the data can Tell us about the impacts of the race-conscious admissions decision?

In reality, Ed Blum, Students for Fair Admissions and the Supreme Court wanted to affirm that admissions to American universities are based on race. This is the term that Chief Justice Roberts used repeatedly in the Supreme Court’s majority decision.

The reality is that at these types of universities that have far more applicants than places to offer, nothing is based on a single factor. Even inheritances do not enter (only) because they are inheritances. Even the children of donors do not enter because they are (the children of donors).

Admission to college is complex. There are many competing priorities, so it is not surprising that there is no clear, positive trend in the outcomes of Hispanic students, Asian American students, and White students.

What are your concerns about journalists covering this data and trying to interpret it in the context of the Students for Fair Admissions decision?

There are some pretty dramatic changes from year to year, so you have to be careful. A single year of data compared to a single year of data on last year’s class isn’t a very good way to understand what’s going on.

The big problem would be to rush to a conclusion like: “That’s exactly what happened, and everything went according to this scenario” and… to say: “Oh, it was a victory for the white students and for organizations that were really trying in secret. to increase the number of white students in these institutions. This has not happened in most establishments.

At Northwestern and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the numbers have remained relatively stable. I wonder if you have any takeaways from these local Illinois schools.

It’s not too much, in a sense, because we don’t know why these results occur.

They were doing something in their admissions process to really prioritize diversity, but maybe not. Honestly, it could have just been luck.

So Northwestern shouldn’t necessarily congratulate itself because the percentage of black students increased from 14% to 15%.

I’ll give them a pat on the back. But let’s wait and see what happens next year, and the year after that, and the year after that. It’s hard work. The problem with enrolling a diverse class is that it is difficult to remove the primary tool that would help a college enroll a diverse class of students. All the agents in the world probably won’t be able to make up the difference.

Lisa Kurian Philip covers higher education for WBEZ, in partnership with Open campus. Follow her on Twitter @LAPhilip.