Photo: John Consoli /  University of Maryland

Expelled from the mountain top?

Sylvester James Gates, Jr., 2010-2011 MIT MLK Visiting Professor

Science, 8 June 2023

In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. professed, “We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop…. And I’ve seen the Promised Land.” Sadly, 55 years later, the United States may have future difficult days regarding fair access to higher education for peoples of diverse demographic backgrounds. Given the Supreme Court’s conservative majority, all signs point to a decision that will make achieving racial diversity at all, especially at highly selective universities, impossible.

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