Dear Law School Community,
Today’s Supreme Court decision marks a significant change to admissions in higher education. Even as we study the Court’s opinion in more detail, the Law School stands by President Magill and Provost Jackson’s commitment both to fully comply with the law and to seek the vibrant and diverse student body that is essential to the University’s educational mission.
As a law school, we will remain committed to realizing equality and justice within and beyond our walls. The powerful learning that can occur in a collegial, inclusive, and diverse environment will continue to be a hallmark of a Penn Carey Law education.
We recognize that these values are achieved only through action: equality will not emerge automatically from inequality, and justice will not take root without deliberate effort. This is the lesson of the struggle to dismantle segregation in schools, workplaces, and public life over more than a century. Advocates, policy makers, and courts developed legal tools to remedy historic and ongoing discrimination.
The Supreme Court has now significantly limited one of those tools. But the Court has not diminished our steadfast commitment to achieving an expansive and inclusive law school community that brings a broad range of ideas, experiences, and perspectives to our halls. Today’s decision also will not interrupt our training of students who will forge the next tools in the unfinished pursuit of equality and justice. We will persist in our work and, more importantly, in our actions as we move forward—together.
Sincerely,
Sophia Z. Lee
Incoming Dean and Professor of Law