The Boston University Student Government posted an open letter regarding “a worrying development in demographics” to their instagram page on Friday, Oct. 25. The letter addressed the University’s Black first-year students’ admission rate drop from 9% to 3% and the overall drop in underrepresented students in the freshman class from 22% to 15%.
The BU administration declined to permit StuGov to use StuGov’s email platform to send the letter to students. These drops follow the Supreme Court’s decision from last year to overturn affirmative action in regards to college admissions.
“Racial diversity is a core aspect of the BU experience, and consistently ranks among the top considerations of prospective students when choosing to attend a school like this one,” Student Body President Akwasi Antwi wrote in the letter.
Antwi said in an interview with The Daily Free Press that he had multiple facets he wanted to address in the letter, and he hopes it empowers the Black student population at BU.
“As a Black student, these numbers were extremely concerning to me, and I wanted to have a statement,” Antwi said.
Antwi said during last week’s StuGov meeting that alongside being posted on the StuGov Instagram, the letter was intended to be emailed out to students by the University. However, BU administration deemed the letter “not appropriate.”
“It’s very surprising because in the past, Student Government has been able to use the email platform to make some needed and important messages regarding how the Student Government feels,” Antwi said during last week’s meeting.
Although the letter was not sent out via email by the University, it was published in a POV article in BU Today on Oct. 9. When asked why the University did not put the letter out themselves, BU Spokesperson Colin Riley wrote in an email to The Daily Free Press that BU Today’s article was “an appropriate place for opinion pieces.”
Riley reaffirmed the University’s commitment to finding a solution to issues relating to affirmative action.
“University officials, from President [Melissa] Gilliam on down, share the concerns , are cognizant of the challenges, are increasing recruitment and outreach, and, of course, will comply with the law,” Riley wrote in an email.
Antwi said he hopes his message will be a “call to action” for administration. As a senior, he hopes students will continue to press the administration and hold them accountable after he graduates.
“The Black community is going to gradually decrease,” Antwi said. “The amount of people that are going to be able to stand up for them is probably going to decrease.”
Kirsten Saint-Fort, vice president of finance for StuGov, said the school’s refusal to email the letter to students was “extremely frustrating” since StuGov has spoken out about the University in the past.
“We had to adjust and figure out a way to make sure that people were seeing we were not in approval of the fact that something like this was brushed over,” Saint-Fort said.
Saint-Fort added that it was disappointing to see BU’s decline in Black student enrollment after enrollment had increased from when she was admitted.
“Being Black students here at BU, that was a very depressing statistic to read because our incoming year had a 4% Black enrollment, and that was seen as a high point,” Saint-Fort said. “To see all the efforts that had been increasing with the following class years after ours, and for it to drop this much, was really disappointing.”
Jeremie Nsubayi, president of UMOJA, BU’s Black Student Union, said most of what he’s seen about the drop in enrollment has come from StuGov. While he appreciates StuGov and their efforts, he said they “don’t have as big of a reach” as the University itself.
“When it comes to things like race and things that are negatively reflecting on BU, they don’t open up or share as much as they should,” said Nsubayi. “They leave it up to students to speak on it.”
Saint-Fort said that it was a “hit in the face” for the administration to not open up the conversation about a “valuable portion of our school’s enrollment drop down.”
Nsubayi said he hopes the decrease in Black students on campus does not mean a decrease in the support and resources provided to Black students.
“There are less and less of us that are going to be coming on campus whether that’s due to affirmative action or just less enrollment,” said Nsubayi. “This is when BU should step up the most in terms of helping the Black community.”
Saint-Fort said that StuGov has been working in collaboration with the Black Student Task Force to establish the Black Student Resource Center. StuGov hopes to create the foundation to allow for spaces for other underrepresented groups on campus as well through the Center.
She emphasized that everyone on BU’s campus should care about diversity on campus, which is “invaluable,” and that administration should put in more work to prevent diversity gaps from widening.
“We won’t see it right now, we just see the numbers,” Saint-Fort said. “But later on… [we] could be missing out on invaluable talent that could be added to BU’s community and continue to help us grow.”
