A Flourishing Diversity of Faith

This month, the Harvard Crimson released results from its annual survey of the incoming first year class. The survey revealed that legacy admissions were unpopular with the Class of 2027 — in stark contrast to respondents’ majority support for affirmative action policies — and that the disparity between the average SAT scores of recruited athletes and those of non-athletes widened to 160 points.

Such admissions-related topics often dominate campus conversation (including our own recent staff-editorials!), and for good reason. But tucked away in the “Politics & Beliefs” corner of the survey lies an oft-overlooked yet equally important barometer of student diversity: religious belief.

The data reveal a 14 percent decrease in Protestant-identifying students over the past decade, a development representing a notable departure from the Protestant roots of the University. The survey results also show a general rise in students identifying as atheist or agnostic over the past ten years — what some might interpret as evidence for a “secularization” or “death of God” trend among the younger generation (although we maintain, and celebrate, its viability as a spiritual path).

Admittedly, statistical inference from this year’s survey findings is suspect and spotty given its low response rate of 45.8 percent. Yet the robust religious diversity reflected in the nearly half of the class who did respond to the survey convinces us that Harvard’s new first year class spans a significant spectrum of spiritual beliefs.

Harvard — founded as Protestant university with the primary aim of educating Protestants — has a long history of attempts to preserve itself as a Protestant institution, whether through admissions processes or physical structures on campus. In fact, part of the reason legacy admission preferences were solidified in the 1920s was to maintain the original constituency of Harvard: white and Protestant.

The decline in Protestant-identifying students indicates Harvard may be breaking from its exclusionary past, a change we welcome. Far from its cloistered and largely inaccessible history, our current Harvard has become home to students of many faiths and belief systems.

In addition to providing a broader swath of students the opportunity to study at an elite educational institution, religious variety at Harvard has generative effects. From a comment in section about how a literary or philosophical text reflects an ancient religious idea to campus activism fueled by spiritual beliefs, our students of faith — hailing from a diverse cross-section of the world’s religions — contribute immensely to our campus ecosystem.

This year also marked the first time that Sikh and Buddhist categories were added to the survey. Approximately 1.7 percent of respondents identified as Buddhist and 0.1 percent identified as Sikh, which shows that some students fell through the cracks in previous survey results. Similarly, the category of “other” was only recently added for the Class of 2024 survey. While we are disappointed that diversifying these categories took so long, we are excited about the expansion of religious identification at the College and the structural support for marginalized students that such recognition may beget.

As Harvard students, it’s difficult to deny that we live on a campus permeated by Protestantism: The dichotomy between the towering grandeur of Memorial Church and the subterranean Hindu and Muslim prayer space is just one example of how Harvard’s religious roots continue to affect our campus. Yet these new survey results confirm that religious diversity among Harvard’s student body is also beginning to take root, and we look forward to seeing more initiatives that recognize and nurture these flourishing faiths in the years to come.

Correction: November 28, 2023

A previous version of this editorial incorrectly stated that 12 percent of surveyed freshmen identified as Buddhist. In fact, 1.7 percent of respondents said they identified as Buddhist.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

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