Two women shaped by elite institutions — one now a Supreme Court Justice, the other a former First Lady — have given voice this week to a truth that legal rulings cannot easily reach: that belonging, not mere admission, is what transforms a young person's life. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, speaking on Michelle Obama's podcast, drew on her own passage from a lonely high school prominence to the grounding warmth of Harvard's Black community, where critical mass made wholeness possible. Their conversation arrives as enrollment data quietly confirms what they feared — that the 2023 ruling ending
Jackson backs Obama on isolating students of color at elite colleges
I found my people, in a sense.
Mark
When Justice Jackson talks about finding her people at Harvard, is she saying that diversity numbers alone don't matter?
Mimi
Not quite. She's saying that the way diversity is distributed matters enormously. A handful of Black students scattered across a large campus is not the same as a critical mass of them. One creates isolation; the other creates community.
Mark
But doesn't that create a tension with the Supreme Court's ruling? If you can't consider race in admissions, how do you build that critical mass?
Mimi
Exactly. That's the tension Jackson was pointing to in her dissent. The ruling assumes that race-blind admissions will still produce diverse classes. The enrollment data suggests otherwise.
Mark
So is Jackson arguing against the ruling she participated in?
Mimi
She's not arguing against it directly—she recused herself from the Harvard case. But her podcast comments and her dissent in the UNC case make clear she believes the ruling will harm students of color by reducing their numbers and, by extension, their sense of belonging.
Mark
What does Harvard say about all this?
Mimi
Harvard says it's complying with the law. It changed its procedures, stopped showing race information to reviewers, and produced documentation of that compliance. But the Justice Department is still examining the data to verify.
Mark
Is there a way to square this circle—to admit students of color in meaningful numbers without explicitly considering race?
Mimi
That's the question everyone is wrestling with now. Some universities are exploring socioeconomic factors, first-generation status, and other proxies. Whether those produce the same results is still unclear.
Mark
And Jackson's experience—does it suggest what's at stake?
Mimi
Yes. She's describing something that can't be measured in admissions statistics: the difference between being present and belonging. That difference, she's saying, shapes how students experience their education and themselves.
Il Polso
- Jackson and Obama are naming something the law has not resolved: that scattering a handful of students of color across a vast campus is not inclusion — it is a more polished form of isolation.
- Harvard's Black enrollment has dropped from 18 percent to 11.5 percent in just two years since the Supreme Court struck down race-conscious admissions, a statistical shift that mirrors the human experience both women described.
- The Justice Department has sued Harvard demanding applicant-level records, framing the action as a compliance check while the university insists it moved swiftly to follow the ruling and has the documentation to prove it.
- Jackson, who recused herself from the Harvard case but dissented in the parallel UNC ruling, warned then that eliminating race-conscious policy would make things worse — and the numbers since have not contradicted her.
Two women shaped by elite institutions — one now a Supreme Court Justice, the other a former First Lady — have given voice this week to a truth that legal rulings cannot easily reach: that belonging, not mere admission, is what transforms a young person's life. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, speaking on Michelle Obama's podcast, drew on her own passage from a lonely high school prominence to the grounding warmth of Harvard's Black community, where critical mass made wholeness possible. Their conversation arrives as enrollment data quietly confirms what they feared — that the 2023 ruling ending race-conscious admissions has already begun thinning the very communities that once made places like Harvard feel like home to students of color.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson appeared on Michelle Obama's podcast this week and found herself in ready agreement with a pointed observation: elite universities do students of color no real service by admitting them in small numbers and dispersing them thinly across campus. Obama put it plainly, and Jackson confirmed it without hesitation.
But Jackson also offered something more personal — a contrast between two very different experiences of belonging. High school had given her social standing without genuine connection. Harvard gave her something rarer: a sizable Black community already rooted on campus, including five Black women she lived alongside in a dormitory. "It was like, I found my people," she said. That critical mass, she suggested, was what allowed her to be fully herself.
The conversation carries particular weight given the legal moment it inhabits. In 2023, the Supreme Court struck down race-conscious admissions at Harvard and the University of North Carolina. Jackson recused herself from the Harvard case due to her prior service on its Board of Overseers, but she joined the dissent in the UNC case and wrote her own warning: that the ruling would make things worse, not better, for students navigating a country where race still shapes lived experience in profound ways.
The enrollment data since the ruling suggests her concern was well-founded. Harvard's Black student share has fallen from 18 percent in the Class of 2027 to 11.5 percent in the Class of 2029 — a measurable retreat toward precisely the thinness Jackson and Obama were describing.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department sued Harvard in February seeking applicant-level records to verify compliance with the ruling. Harvard moved to dismiss the case in June, arguing it had already restructured its admissions process and produced thousands of pages of documentation. Beneath the legal maneuvering, the deeper question remains the one Jackson and Obama were really asking: what kind of community does a university build when it follows the law as narrowly as possible?
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson sat down on Michelle Obama's podcast this week and found herself nodding along to a familiar critique: that elite universities do students of color no favors by admitting them in small numbers and then scattering them across campus like isolated tokens. Jackson, who has walked both sides of that world, spoke from experience.
Obama, during Wednesday's episode, laid out the problem plainly. "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," she said. Jackson agreed without hesitation. "I think that's absolutely right," the justice replied.
But Jackson's agreement came with a counterweight—a memory of what the opposite felt like. She described high school as a time of popularity shadowed by loneliness, a disconnect between social standing and genuine belonging. College changed that. When Jackson arrived at Harvard in the late 1980s, she found something her high school had not offered: a sizable Black community already rooted on campus. "It was like, I found my people, in a sense," she said. She lived with five other Black women in a dormitory, part of a larger network of students who shared similar backgrounds and life experiences. That proximity, that critical mass, allowed her to be fully herself in a way isolation never could.
Jackson's reflection carries weight because she has seen the institution from multiple angles. She earned her undergraduate degree from Harvard in 1992 and later her law degree there as well. Obama followed a different path—Princeton for her undergraduate years, then Harvard Law. Both women have benefited from elite education. Both have also witnessed what happens when that education is distributed unevenly.
The conversation arrives at a moment when the question of who gets admitted to places like Harvard has become a live legal matter. In 2023, the Supreme Court struck down race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina. Jackson recused herself from the Harvard case because she had served on the university's Board of Overseers, but she joined Justice Sonia Sotomayor's dissent in the UNC case and issued her own warning. "No one benefits from ignorance," she 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."
The numbers since the ruling suggest Jackson's concern was prescient. Harvard's Black enrollment has declined measurably in the two years following the decision. Among students who reported their race, Black students made up 11.5 percent of the Class of 2029, down from 14 percent in the Class of 2028 and 18 percent in the Class of 2027. Asian American enrollment rose to 41 percent in the latest admitted class, while Hispanic enrollment fell to 11 percent. The composition of the student body has shifted in ways that echo the very isolation Jackson and Obama were discussing.
The Justice Department has taken notice. In February, it sued Harvard seeking applicant-level records to determine whether the university is complying with the Supreme Court's ruling. The department framed the lawsuit as a compliance check, not an accusation of new discrimination. "If Harvard has stopped discriminating, it should happily share the data necessary to prove it," said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon. Harvard responded by moving to dismiss the case in June, arguing that it had changed its procedures immediately after the ruling, blocked application reviewers from seeing race information, and produced thousands of pages documenting its compliance. The university stated it remains committed to following civil rights law in admissions and financial aid.
What Jackson and Obama were discussing on the podcast—the human cost of tokenism, the power of community, the way belonging shapes a student's experience—sits beneath all of this legal maneuvering. The question is not just whether universities follow the law. It is what kind of educational environment they create when they do.
Citazioni salienti
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.— Michelle Obama
No one benefits from ignorance. 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.— Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, in her dissent in the UNC case
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