Jasper Smith

Jasper Smith is a staff reporter for The Chronicle of Higher Education writing about how race shapes college campuses. Smith’s reporting approaches higher education through the lens of history, dissecting the ways that past policy, social movements, and laws have shaped the sector. Smith has covered the dissolution of diversity initiatives; enrollment changes in a post-affirmative action admissions landscape; and state policies that restrict how faculty can teach about race, gender, and identity.

Smith’s investigative reporting on the plight of a Tennessee HBCU was recognized by the Education Writers Association for its “deeply researched and well sourced” writing that captured how financial mismanagement and loss of accreditation derailed a college.  Smith was honored in 2025 by the Washington Association of Black Journalists as the organization’s Young Journalist of Excellence and in 2026 by the NAACP for her reporting on HBCU federal funding loss.