MIT reports less diverse incoming class due to the end of affirmative action

"We expected that this would result in fewer students from historically underrepresented racial and ethnic groups enrolling at MIT," Schmill said in MIT News. "That's what has happened."

Schmill noted that, based on empirical data and personal experience, education is stronger when a student body is above a "high bar of academic excellence" and "broadly diverse."

The decision declared that race can no longer be a factor in admitting students and challenged higher education institutions to find new ways to achieve diverse student bodies.

Even though the school did not solicit race or ethnicity information from applicants this year, Schmill said, there is "no doubt that we left out many well-qualified, well-matched applicants from historically under-represented backgrounds."

Read at Boston.com