Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law: Correcting the Record on Affinity Student Groups and Spaces

Nearly three years after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina (“SFFA”), colleges continue to grapple with questions about what is permissible, what is required, and what remains essential to advance racial equity in higher education. Despite progress in postsecondary outcomes for Black students and students of color over the past few decades, systemic barriers to college enrollment and completion persist. Overall, far fewer Black and Latine adults obtain a college degree than white adults—in 2022, 17.3%, 14.5%, and 26.1% respectively. There has long been underrepresentation in enrollment of Black students and other students of color at most selective colleges, and in 2025 that got significantly worse, with enrollment of Black students decreasing by half at some selective colleges and being at or below 2% at multiple colleges.

The Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights Under Law has published a new resource to help institutions, faculty, and staff as they navigate continued attacks on student affinity groups and spaces. Analysis includes:

‍Affinity groups and spaces for Black students, students of color, women, LGBTQ+ students, and students from other underrepresented backgrounds are an essential component of fostering integrated and inclusive campus environments where students can feel safe, celebrated, and welcome.

• Affinity student groups and spaces are the result of persistent student advocacy to remedy campus environments that were rife with discrimination against Black students and other students of color, where those students were isolated and invisible, and where their experiences were dismissed and unacknowledged.
• Affinity student groups and spaces are generally lawful—they do not categorically or generally violate federal civil rights laws.
• By supporting these groups and spaces, colleges can help prevent and address discrimination as required by federal civil rights laws. And by abandoning, destroying, and undermining these groups and spaces, colleges instead perpetuate a backslide on the promise of equal access to education, heavily increasing the likelihood that students face hostile environments on campus and experience unlawful discrimination.
• When colleges offer and support groups, spaces, and activities for students from underrepresented backgrounds and identities to share ideas, forge connections, and discuss common experiences, they help cultivate inclusive, life-affirming campus communities that are welcoming to students from populations that have traditionally faced significant barriers in accessing education on equal terms.

The full report is available here.

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