Leadership at the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) and the Program in the Environment (PitE) released the following statement after the Supreme Court ruled that race-based considerations should be restricted in college admissions.

As we learn more about today’s disappointing Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action, we want to reiterate the message below from U-M President Santa Ono and Provost McCauley. We underscore our unwavering support for ensuring that diversity, equity, and inclusion are ingrained in everything we do here at SEAS and PitE. Simply put, SEAS, PitE, and the environmental field as a whole cannot exist or carry out our mission without being as diverse and inclusive as possible. DEI is a core value at U-M and in SEAS, embedded throughout all that we do. With this ruling, we must double down on our support for DEI. We remain committed to recruiting diverse students and supporting them throughout their time at U-M and beyond. 

We have been inspired by the actions of our students and community as a whole who continue to center DEI in our mission of building a more sustainable and just world. At SEAS, we have focused on reducing barriers within the admissions process that have been shown to perpetuate bias, such as eliminating the GRE requirement, which research shows isn’t a good predictor of academic success. Instead, we’ve developed a holistic application review that considers an applicant’s academic background, professional experience, research experience, and writing skills. A holistic admissions review also ensures that we take every individual applicant’s unique background and circumstances into consideration, with the knowledge that access to educational and professional opportunities is not distributed equitably across all populations.  

While we’ve accomplished a great deal together, we must recognize that there is still a great deal of work ahead of us. We must show up to do the work together each and every day.

As we look ahead, this means taking specific actions such as implementing the new SEAS DEI 2.0 strategic plan. This plan, which was recently submitted to central campus administration, was the result of a collaborative effort across the school. We look forward to sharing the plan as soon as it is approved. Looking forward, we must also continue to focus on increasing broad diversity across our students, staff, and faculty, while focusing on retention through culturally responsive programming, building an equity-centered curriculum, and cultivating a school climate that is grounded in our shared values that allows all members of our community to thrive and be their best selves. As a guiding measure, we will work in partnership to review the insights from the Black Student Body letter from September 2020, which sought to advance racial justice and diversity, equity, and inclusion within SEAS, and assess what we have accomplished, and the important work yet to be done.

We know everyone processes news like this in different ways, and that there are likely a range of emotions that many are feeling as we learn about today’s ruling. If you are in need of support:

• Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) - 734-764-8312 (24 hours)

• CAPS community provider database

• Faculty/Staff- Faculty and Staff Counseling and Consultation Office (FASCCO) -  734-936-8660 or email [email protected] to schedule

• SEAS Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion - ([email protected]). 

• As always, SEAS Student Center is available to assist students in any way, both academically and outside of the classroom. If you're seeking support, please reach out to [email protected]. This email goes to Jennifer Taylor, Jaime Langdon,  and Kim Elliott. 

We are grateful for your commitment to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion here at U-M and throughout the environmental movement. 

Dean Jonathan Overpeck
Lauren Davis, Director of Diversity, Equity, and Community
Rebecca Hardin, Faculty Director for Justice, Equity, and Inclusion
Michaela Zint, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
Bill Currie Associate Dean for Research and Engagement
Kim Elliott, Assistant Dean

University Statement

Updated June 29, 2023

To all members of the campus community,

The University of Michigan remains steadfast in its commitment to fostering a diverse educational environment for our students and scholars, which is essential to our core mission of academic excellence. Today as university leaders, we recommit ourselves to this value. 

Although the U-M is not directly affected by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to significantly narrow how race can be considered in admissions policies, we are deeply disheartened by the court’s ruling.

We remain firmly convinced that racial diversity is one of the many important components of a broadly diverse student body and an intellectually and culturally rich campus community. We believe racial diversity benefits the exchange and development of ideas by increasing students’ variety of perspectives, promoting cross-racial understanding and dispelling racial stereotypes. It helps prepare students to be leaders in a global marketplace and increasingly multicultural society. This belief is supported by a robust body of social science and educational research evidence. 

During the Grutter (2003) case, U-M fought to consider race in a narrowly tailored manner that is attentive to the distinctive characteristics of individual applicants. Despite this victory, the state of Michigan passed in 2006 a constitutional amendment, Proposal 2, restricting public universities from considering race in admissions decisions. As a result, U-M has been operating for the past 17 years without considering race in its admissions policies. 

The ruling will not change our values or efforts to become a more diverse university community.

U-M’s experiences with Proposal 2 can be instructive to other institutions of higher education. In continued efforts to cultivate and support a diverse student body, the university made significant commitments to practices, policies and procedures focused on race-neutral factors. These considerable efforts—buoyed by a large, campuswide diversity, equity, and inclusion strategic plan initiative — have resulted in noteworthy diversity strides in the representation of more socio-economically disadvantaged students and of some racial/ethnic communities. 

At the same time, U-M’s experiences demonstrate what research has now shown clearly — that it is much more difficult to achieve racial diversity in the student body using only race-neutral methods than by including race in the admissions process in a narrowly-tailored manner. Proposal 2 had disproportionate, negative impacts on the most underrepresented communities; race-neutral policies have been much less successful in significantly increasing enrollments of Black and Native American students. 

In the face of these challenges, we persist. We strive to create and support an educational community of diverse voices with a range of experiences. U-M’s experiences with Proposal 2 have taught us that achieving a more diverse student body in an unequal K-12 education system—racially, socioeconomically, among other areas—requires dedicating significant attention and effort to developing legally-permissible policies, practices, procedures and programs.

U-M’s recent diversity, equity and inclusion strategic plan, DEI 1.0, is an example of an institution-wide effort that resulted in significant progress, and successful and promising models for enhancing diversity. We also saw areas where we made less progress, and lessons learned about where we need to focus more. As we build on our progress and learning in our next strategic plan, DEI 2.0, we will continue to leverage innovative strategies with the greatest promise for achieving increased and abundant representation of the communities that make up our state, nation and global society. 

We still wholeheartedly believe our dedication to academic excellence for the public good is inseparable from our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.

We know we have much more work to do to live up to our ideals of a broadly diverse learning community. The court’s decision makes this work more urgent than ever. 

By doing this work, U-M has an opportunity once again to serve higher education more broadly, through sharing our lessons learned on how to achieve a more racially and otherwise diverse student body within the legal parameters newly announced by the court. 

Once again, we have an opportunity to live up to our goals of being leaders and best.

Sincerely,

Santa J. Ono
President 

Laurie K. McCauley
Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs