The 2023 Supreme Court decision banning colleges and universities from considering race in admissions upended a decades-long effort to increase racial equity in education. But the ruling didn’t just affect the behind-the-scenes mechanics of admissions policy. It also upended the lives of high school seniors applying to college and of school administrators reckoning with an uncertain new educational and legal terrain. And it has far-reaching implications for both education and society.
This project was reported and designed by the Media Innovation Studio at Northeastern University’s School of Journalism, part of its graduate program in Media Innovation + Data Communication. The student reporting teams interviewed dozens of graduating high school seniors, admissions officers and researchers across the US to produce the stories and data visualizations.