With Black Enrollment Down, Amherst College Faces an Identity Crisis

With Black Enrollment Down, Amherst College Faces an Identity Crisis

One of the nation’s most elite liberal arts schools, Amherst College has historically also been one of its most diverse. In 2023, federal data revealed that its overall Black enrollment, 11 percent of the student body, far outstripped many other similar institutions. So it was particularly jarring to the Amherst community last fall when data for the entering freshman class revealed that only 3 percent of its members were Black. Quincy Smith, an …

After Black Enrollment Fell, Amherst College Faces an Identity Crisis - Overpasses For America

One of the nation’s most elite liberal arts schools, Amherst College has historically also been one of its most diverse. In 2023, federal data revealed that its overall Black enrollment, 11 percent of the student body, far outstripped many other similar institutions. So it was particularly jarring to the Amherst community last fall when data for the entering freshman class revealed that only 3 percent of its members were Black. Quincy Smith, an …

Albert Einstein Academies’ Identity Crisis Comes to a Head

On a late Tuesday afternoon, parents packed into a multi-purpose room on the bottom floor of the Albert Einstein Academy Charter Middle School campus in Grant Hill. A troop of children dressed in the school’s dark blue and red uniforms sat at a wooden folding table near the back of the room. The kids busied themselves coloring signs. One featured the horizontal black, red and yellow bars of the German flag. Other children were coloring in big bl…