Message from the Dean on the Supreme Court Decisions Regarding Admissions in Higher Education

Dear YSE Community,

As you have likely learned from President Salovey’s message or read in the news, the Supreme Court of the United States earlier today issued decisions that effectively preclude the consideration of race in admissions. I am extremely disappointed in the Supreme Court’s decisions.

Diversifying our student body, as well as our faculty and staff, so that we can think, act, and engage most effectively with the wide breadth of today’s environmental challenges, is one of the key priorities of our school’s strategic plan. The diversity of our student body brings enormous benefit to the entire YSE and Yale communities and, ultimately, to wider society, as our students, alumni, and faculty advance solutions to the interconnected and ever-more urgent environmental challenges that pose a grave threat to the future of our planet. To put it plainly, a diverse community is a more empathetic, innovative, and stronger community. And we need all these characteristics — empathy, strength, innovation (and imagination) if we are to meet the national and global environmental challenges ahead.

I want to assure you that the Yale School of the Environment is committed to doing everything possible within the limits of the law to continue to uphold these values; our future depends on it.

Dean Burke