# Dean Hempton, Harvard Leadership Respond to Supreme Court Admissions Decision June 29, 2023 ![Dean David N. Hempton. / Photo: Stephanie Mitchell, Harvard Staff Photographer](/sites/g/files/omnuum5526/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/hds2/files/hempton.gazette.600x400.jpg?itok=S8AX51Zq) Dean David N. Hempton. / Photo: Stephanie Mitchell, Harvard Staff Photographer *HDS Dean David N. Hempton and Harvard University Leadership respond to the June 29, 2023,* [*decision*](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_hgdj.pdf) *on Students for Fair Admissions, Inc., v. President and Fellows of Harvard College.* Dear Members of the Harvard Community, Today, the Supreme Court delivered its decision in *Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College*. The Court held that Harvard College’s admissions system does not comply with the principles of the equal protection clause embodied in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. The Court also ruled that colleges and universities may consider in admissions decisions “an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.” We will certainly comply with the Court’s decision. We write today to reaffirm the fundamental principle that deep and transformative teaching, learning, and research depend upon a community comprising people of many backgrounds, perspectives, and lived experiences. That principle is as true and important today as it was yesterday. So too are the abiding values that have enabled us—and every great educational institution—to pursue the high calling of educating creative thinkers and bold leaders, of deepening human knowledge, and of promoting progress, justice, and human flourishing. We affirm that: - Because the teaching, learning, research, and creativity that bring progress and change require debate and disagreement, diversity and difference are essential to academic excellence. - To prepare leaders for a complex world, Harvard must admit and educate a student body whose members reflect, and have lived, multiple facets of human experience. No part of what makes us who we are could ever be irrelevant. - Harvard must always be a place of opportunity, a place whose doors remain open to those to whom they had long been closed, a place where many will have the chance to live dreams their parents or grandparents could not have dreamed. For almost a decade, Harvard has vigorously defended an admissions system that, as two federal courts ruled, fully complied with longstanding precedent. In the weeks and months ahead, drawing on the talent and expertise of our Harvard community, we will determine how to preserve, consistent with the Court’s new precedent, our essential values. The heart of our extraordinary institution is its people. Harvard will continue to be a vibrant community whose members come from all walks of life, all over the world. To our students, faculty, staff, researchers, and alumni—past, present, and future—who call Harvard your home, please know that you are, and always will be, Harvard. Your remarkable contributions to our community and the world drive Harvard’s distinction. Nothing today has changed that. Sincerely, Lawrence S. Bacow President, Harvard University Alan M. Garber Provost, Harvard University Meredith Weenick Executive Vice President, Harvard University Claudine Gay Dean, Faculty of Arts and Sciences President-elect, Harvard University Tomiko Brown-Nagin Dean, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Nancy Coleman Dean, Division of Continuing Education and University Extension George Q. Daley Dean, Harvard Medical School Srikant Datar Dean, Harvard Business School Emma Dench Dean, Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Francis J. Doyle III Dean, Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Douglas Elmendorf Dean, Harvard Kennedy School of Government William V. Giannobile Dean, Harvard School of Dental Medicine David N. Hempton Dean, Harvard Divinity School Rakesh Khurana Dean, Harvard College Bridget Terry Long Dean, Harvard Graduate School of Education John F. Manning Dean, Harvard Law School Sarah M. Whiting Dean, Graduate School of Design Michelle A. Williams Dean, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health *Read more at the* [*Harvard Admissions Case website*](https://www.harvard.edu/admissionscase/)*.*