Harvard students say campus will suffer with less diversity after Supreme Court ruling
CAMBRIDGE - Some Harvard University students protested on campus Saturday vowing to fight on, a day after the Supreme Court ended race-based affirmative action in college admissions.
"I call upon you to continue to stand, to speak and fight for the silent voices and unheard stories," sophomore Michelle Jean-Louis told others at the rally.
"We will not allow our stories to be silenced and we will be seen," said sophomore Anouska Ortiz. She said affirmative action was just one factor that got her into the university as a student from a low-income background.
"I truly do come from an underrepresented community and an underrepresented neighborhood and because I was given that platform to speak my story, I am grateful to have also met other trailblazers," she told WBZ.
Harvard was one of two universities sued in a lawsuit that accused the school of discriminating against Asian and white students with its admissions policies, which offended some Asian students participating in the rally.
"I'm not your wedge, we're not your minions. We're going to keep standing in solidarity as people of color together," said Liana Chow, a Harvard graduate.
The students say the cost of the Supreme Court decision will be less diversity at Harvard, but rather than a setback they want it to mobilize the campus.
"For us to have a sort of equitable higher education, we need visibility for the people who don't have the amount of resources that others do," Jean-Louis told WBZ.
She says she's not afraid to say affirmative action helped her.
"At first I started taking it as a almost an insult, when people would tell me that you got into Harvard because you're Black. But the reality is my race has influenced the way that I see the world, the experiences that I have," Jean-Louis said.
Without a campus of diverse experiences, these students say Harvard will suffer. It's a university that is now trying to find answers to what happens next.