For half a century MIT’s Office of Minority Education (OME) has been there to hold the hands of students admitted to MIT based on admissions criteria that perhaps maybe sometimes accepted a few students who might not have arrived as well prepared as others.

Rapid changes are afoot since the Supreme Court ruled such admissions criteria illegal. For one, the number of students requiring hand holding has plummeted.

To both provide full employment for administrators and support struggling students without breaking the law, OME is being absorbed into a new Office of Academic Community, Empowerment, and Success (OACES). This unit of the Undergraduate Advising Center will serve all students without regard to race, ethnicity, or national origin.

Reactions were mixed.

“What a relief!” exclaimed double 800 SAT sophomore Leroy Washington, class of 2028. “Merit-based admissions and an end to second-class citizenship means I no longer have to put up with insinuations that I’m here for any other reason than I earned it.”

MIT’s student newspaper The Tech responded with a 2,500-word piece that can briefly be summarized as … Waaaaah!

The late Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who once opined that “We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary,” was not available for comment.

Former OME program coordinator Maria Arinibar is distressed that MIT will suffer from amnesia once it becomes thoroughly race-blind and merit-based. “Soon, the institution will forget why the OME was created in the first place,” she wrote in a whiny resignation letter broadcast to the whole MIT community.

President Sally Kornfeld remained mum as the prophylactic pivot continues.