Dear Friends, 
The Supreme Court has now issued its profoundly problematic decision in the University of North Carolina and Harvard College cases, undermining our mission to build a strong and welcoming community in which race or ethnicity is one factor among many in our individualized assessment of outstanding candidates for law school admission.
In her statement today expressing deep disappointment with the opinion, and in her prior op-ed, and Amicus brief filed on behalf of Catholic universities, President Julie Sullivan eloquently expresses our university-wide conviction that this decision is not only contrary to settled constitutional principles, but also to our Jesuit, Catholic mission; our core spiritual, moral, educational, and professional values; and the sincerely-held religious beliefs on which our law school was founded.
We wholeheartedly endorse President Sullivan’s message, and we join with our colleagues from Seattle University in encouraging all of you to attend a rapid response webinar tomorrow analyzing all aspects of the Court’s decision. Please register for the webinar with Seattle University here.
As we navigate this decision together in the days and years ahead, we want to reassure you that we will continue to pursue all legally available strategies to strengthen our diverse law school community. Our diversity—including our racial diversity—is one of our law school’s greatest distinctive strengths. In keeping with our mission, we are consistently named among the top law schools in the country for diversity, and we are justifiably proud that 57% of our students identify as students of color and 25% as first-generation students.
Our fundamental Jesuit mission of inclusive excellence will always call us to bring together diverse students from all walks of life, who carry with them —as a constitutive dimension of their full personhood— their unique lived experiences that often intersect with race. In our law school, we will continue to embrace, not erase, the unique identity and experience of every human being. Our Jesuit creed of cura personalis will forever inspire us to treat our prospective students, incoming students, current students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community partners as “whole persons,” whose identities necessarily include their diverse backgrounds.
In the face of these decisions, we will lawfully, but steadfastly advance our distinctive Jesuit mission of providing a transformative legal education for diverse students who by virtue of their courage and determination have demonstrated their ability to make a unique contribution to our law school community and to the legal profession. We will legally, but persistently provide a deeply-rooted sense of belonging to each and every one of our students, many of whom have overcome significant barriers in order to realize their dream of using their Santa Clara Law education in service of, and with, underserved clients and communities. And we will continue to achieve the proven educational, social, economic, professional, client-serving, leadership-generating, innovation-driving, democracy-building, and justice-advancing benefits of our beautifully diverse student body.
Now more than ever, we must, and we will, rededicate ourselves to welcoming, cherishing, and lifting up the diverse, awe-inspiring identities, voices, and experiences of every single member of our law school family—and of our human family.
With warm regards and tremendous gratitude,
Michael Kaufman Thiadora Pina
Dean and Professor of Law Senior Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
