Sotomayor, J., dissenting
elite, national institution. Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery, Report by the President and Fellows of Harvard College 7 (2022) (Harvard Report). Harvard suppressed anti-slavery views, and enslaved persons “served Harvard presidents and professors and fed and cared for Harvard students” on campus. Id., at 7, 15.
Exclusion and discrimination continued to be a part of campus life well into the 20th century. Harvard’s leadership and prominent professors openly promoted “ ‘race science,’ ” racist eugenics, and other theories rooted in racial hierarchy. Id., at 11. Activities to advance these theories “took place on campus,” including “intrusive physical examinations” and “photographing of unclothed” students. Ibid. The university also “prized the admission of academically able Anglo-Saxon students from elite backgrounds—including wealthy white sons of the South.” Id., at 44. By contrast, an average of three Black students enrolled at Harvard each year during the five decades between 1890 and 1940. Id., at 45. Those Black students who managed to enroll at Harvard “excelled academically, earning equal or better academic records than most white students,” but faced the challenges of the deeply rooted legacy of slavery and racism on campus. Ibid. Meanwhile, a few women of color attended Radcliffe College, a separate and overwhelmingly white “women’s annex” where racial minorities were denied campus housing and scholarships. Id., at 51. Women of color at Radcliffe were taught by Harvard professors, but “women did not receive Harvard degrees until 1963.” Ibid.; see also S. Bradley, Upending the Ivory Tower: Civil Rights, Black Power, and the Ivy League 17 (2018) (noting that the historical discussion of racial integration at the Ivy League “is necessarily male-centric,” given the historical exclusion of women of color from these institutions).
Today, benefactors with ties to slavery and white supremacy continue to be memorialized across campus through “statues, buildings, professorships, student houses, and the
