Yale statement on the Supreme Court decision in Fisher v. The University of Texas at Austin

Yale welcomes the Supreme Court’s decision in Fisher v. The University of Texas at Austin, upholding the University of Texas' ability to admit a broadly diverse student body and reaffirming the vital importance of diversity in higher education.
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Yale welcomes the Supreme Court’s decision in Fisher v. The University of Texas at Austin, upholding the University of Texas’ ability to admit a broadly diverse student body and reaffirming the vital importance of diversity in higher education. Yale has been a consistent champion of the right of universities to pursue diversity through legal means, and joined other universities in a friend-of-the-court brief in the Fisher case that described the educational benefit of a student body drawn from many backgrounds and walks of life. 

Experience over decades at Yale has confirmed that a diversity of background, cultures, and experience among qualified students promotes excellence, expands intellectual awareness, and empowers students and faculty to think boldly, critically, and creatively. A diverse student body adds significantly to the rigor and depth of students’ educational experience. Diversity encourages students to question their own assumptions, to test received truths and to appreciate the complexity of the modern world, inspiring them, as Yale College’s mission statement suggests it should, “to lead and serve in every sphere of human activity.”

Yale President Peter Salovey said, “Yale highly values the way that diversity in our population of high achieving students enhances learning, enriches community, and plays an important part in preparing leaders for a pluralistic nation and the interconnected world.”

More than a generation ago, Yale became a leader in higher education by admitting students without considering their ability to pay, noted Dean of Admissions Jeremiah Quinlan: “This ‘need-blind’ admissions policy and the university’s commitment to diversity have been major factors in making Yale a leading university nationally and internationally and the school of choice for a culturally and economically diverse set of the top students in the world.”

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