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- Sarah Lawrence College is inviting undergrad applicants to write about how the Supreme Court's decision to overturn affirmative action is impacting their lives.
- In June, the Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to consider race in college applications.
- But Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that students can still, in essays, write about how race has affected their lives.
Sarah Lawrence College has a unique response to the Supreme Court's June decision to overturn affirmative action: encourage college applicants to make it the topic of their essay.
Sarah Lawrence's admissions website says prospective students applying to be undergraduates at the small liberal arts college in Yonkers, New York, for the 2023-2024 school year should use the Common App.
As a supplement to that, "there may be more you want to tell us that just didn't quite fit into the rest of the application," the admissions site says. Students are then invited to choose from three additional essay prompts to aid their application materials.
Sarah Lawrence's Dean of Admissions Kevin McKenna told Insider that one of the optional essay prompts typically "asked students to reflect on the values of diversity and inclusivity within a community like ours."
"It felt a little disingenuous to simply re-use the same prompt this year in light of such a major ruling around race in admissions," McKenna told Insider.
"So we developed this new prompt in that spirit of still trying to foreground important attributes of our learning community, of which we identified two: first, that we ask our students to take on tough questions and challenging real-world topics head-on, with intellectual rigor and thoughtfulness; and secondly, that as a community that values diversity and equity in education as part of its mission, the current national conversations around race are of the utmost importance to us," he added.
The third prompt points directly to the Supreme Court and its decision.
It specifically calls out Chief Justice John Roberts' written opinion, which states that although colleges and universities shouldn't consider race as it stands alone, they can consider how race has affected an applicant's life.
"In a 2023 majority decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, 'Nothing prohibits universities from considering an applicant's discussion of how race affected the applicant's life, so long as that discussion is concretely tied to a quality of character or unique ability that the particular applicant can contribute to the university,'" Sarah Lawrence's essay prompt reads.
The prompt continues: "Drawing upon examples from your life, a quality of your character, and/or a unique ability you possess, describe how you believe your goals for a college education might be impacted, influenced, or affected by the Court's decision."
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Instead of doing as Roberts suggested by asking applicants to write about how race has affected their lives, Sarah Lawrence is instead inviting students to write about how their lives — and their futures — might be affected by the Court's decision to abolish affirmative action.
McKenna said that "in the discussion of how this prompt came to be, that it is not intended to set any expectations that an applicant should feel that they need to address past traumas or injustices in order to gain admission to the college."
"Like many institutions and organizations working in higher education, our admissions office is concerned about the added anxiety this year that students (particularly black, brown, or indigenous students, but also students who may identify as LGBTQ) are going to feel forced into relaying narratives that they wouldn't otherwise choose to share with colleges," he added.
Instead, McKenna said that with the addition of the new third prompt, the school is "hoping to provide a space for students (if they choose) to address a challenging topic in society, and one that could directly impact the make-up of the student bodies of the colleges to which they are applying."
"The ability to deftly weave one's personal background, their goals for college, and their thoughtful reflections on a major societal issue into a cohesive statement or argument would speak very well to their ability to do the kind of work a liberal arts college like SLC demands of our students," McKenna added.
The Supreme Court's decision led by the conservative justices found that affirmative action policies, which allowed schools to account for a student's race in order to accept more diverse applicants, were discriminatory.