Enrollment of Students of Color Drops 8 Percentage Points at Harvard Law School

Updated September 20, 2024, at 12:14 a.m.

The share of students of color enrolled in Harvard Law School’s J.D. Class of 2027 dropped by eight percentage points compared to last year, according to data released by HLS on Thursday.

The Class of 2027 is the Law School’s first class admitted after the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action.

The proportion of students of color in HLS’s first-year class fell to 43 percent from 51 percent the previous year. The share of first-generation and/or low-income college students also fell from 14 percent to 11 percent.

The Class of 2027 ties the Class of 2020 for the lowest proportion of students of color since 2014. HLS did not report a more specific demographic breakdown by race.

The demographic changes at HLS follow a four percentage point drop in Black enrollment at Harvard College. Like the College, the Law School also changed its admissions process for its incoming class, requiring both a “Statement of Purpose” and “Statement of Perspective,” which asks applicants “how your experiences, background, and/or interests have shaped you.” Previously, applicants to HLS had to submit one “personal statement.”

The Law School quietly released the race data on Thursday, without an announcement to students or a press release to explain the decline in enrolled students of color. HLS has not previously released announcements of their updated class profiles.

HLS had already uploaded the rest of its 1L class profile uploaded to its website in late August, including their data on female and LGBTQ+ enrollment, academic percentiles, and admission rates.

According to an official at HLS, the data released on racial demographics was from a survey of enrolled students. The Law School did not collect racial demographic information on their application, unlike the information they released in August.

The share of women in the HLS class of 2027 went up two percentage points compared to the previous year, from 51 percent to 53 percent, while the share of students identifying as LGBTQ+ increased to 22 percent from 17 percent.

HLS’s acceptance rate also ticked up from 9.5 percent to 11 percent after the Law School saw a 14 percent decrease in the total number of applicants — from 8,393 applications for the class of 2026 to 7,235 applications to the class of 2027.

Still, HLS maintained its academic percentiles, as the LSAT percentiles for the class of 2027 were identical to those of the previous class. The median GPA went up by 0.02 points, from 3.93 to 3.95.

—Staff writer S. Mac Healey can be reached at mac.healey@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @MacHealey.

—Staff writer Saketh Sundar can be reached at saketh.sundar@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @saketh_sundar.