US Supreme Court rejects affirmative action in university admissions
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[June 30, 2023]
By Andrew Chung and John Kruzel
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday struck down
race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard University and the
University of North Carolina, effectively prohibiting affirmative action
policies long used to raise the number of Black, Hispanic and other
underrepresented minority students on American campuses.
In a blockbuster decision that will force many colleges and universities
to overhaul their admissions policies, the justices ruled that
affirmative action admissions programs that consider an applicant's race
in ways like Harvard and UNC did violate the U.S. Constitution's promise
of equal protection under the law.
Powered by the conservative justices with the liberals in dissent, the
court sided with a group called Students for Fair Admissions, founded by
anti-affirmative action activist Edward Blum, in its appeal of lower
court rulings upholding programs used at the two prestigious schools to
foster a diverse student population. The vote counts were 6-3 against
UNC and 6-2 against Harvard.
In landmark rulings last year with far-reaching societal implications
also spearheaded by the conservative justices, the court overturned the
1973 Roe v. Wade decision that had legalized abortion nationwide and
widened gun rights.
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Speaking at the White House, Democratic President Joe Biden said he
strongly disagreed with Thursday's ruling, written by Chief Justice John
Roberts, and urged colleges not to abandon their commitment to student
diversity. Asked by a reporter if this is "a rogue court," Biden
replied, "This is not a normal court."
Roberts wrote that a student "must be treated based on his or her
experiences as an individual not on the basis of race. Many universities
have for too long done just the opposite. And in doing so, they have
concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individual's identity is
not challenges bested, skills built or lessons learned but the color of
their skin. Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice."
According to Harvard, around 40% of U.S. colleges and universities
consider race in some fashion. Blum's group in lawsuits filed in 2014
accused UNC of discriminating against white and Asian American
applicants and Harvard of bias against Asian American applicants.
Harvard and UNC had said they used race as only one factor in a host of
individualized evaluations for admission without quotas - permissible
under previous Supreme Court precedents - and that curbing its
consideration would cause a significant drop in enrollment of students
from under-represented groups.
"Harvard and UNC admissions programs cannot be reconciled with the
guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause," Roberts wrote, referring to
the constitutional provision.
Universities, Roberts added, may still consider a student's personal
essays about "how race affected his or her life, be it through
discrimination, inspiration or otherwise." But, Roberts said,
"universities may not simply establish through application essays or
other means the regime we hold unlawful today."
Affirmative action had withstood Supreme Court scrutiny for decades,
most recently in a 2016 ruling involving a white student, backed by
Blum, who sued the University of Texas after being rejected for
admission.
The Supreme Court has shifted rightward since 2016 and now includes
three justices who dissented in that case and three appointees by
Republican former President Donald Trump, who is running again in 2024.
Trump on Thursday hailed Thursday's ruling as "a great day for America."
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Many institutions of higher education, corporations and military leaders
long have backed affirmative action on campuses not simply to remedy
racial inequity and exclusion in American life but to ensure a talent
pool that can bring a range of perspectives to the workplace and the
U.S. armed forces.
Thursday's ruling appeared to exempt military service academies from its
sweep, with Roberts highlighting "the potentially distinct interests
that military academies may present," and noting that the litigation had
not addressed "the propriety of race-based admissions systems in that
context."
Biden, seeking re-election in 2024, recommended that colleges weigh a
range of factors in admitting students including their economic
backgrounds or hardships they had faced including racial discrimination.
"Discrimination still exists in America. Today's decision doesn't change
that," Biden said.
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![](../images/063023PIX/news_k10.jpg)
Demonstrators for and against the U.S.
Supreme Court decision to strike down race-conscious student
admissions programs at Harvard University and the University of
North Carolina confront each other, in Washington, U.S., June 29,
2023. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
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"I believe our colleges are stronger when they are racially diverse.
Our nation is stronger ... because we are tapping into the full
range of talent in this nation," Biden added.
'LET THEM EAT CAKE'
Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to
serve on the court, wrote in a dissent: "With let-them-eat-cake
obliviousness, today, the (court's) majority pulls the ripcord and
announces 'colorblindness for all' by legal fiat. But deeming race
irrelevant in law does not make it so in life."
Jackson did not participate in the Harvard case because of her past
affiliation with the university.
Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic jurist on the
court, wrote that the decision subverts the constitutional guarantee
of equal protection and further entrenches racial inequality in
education.
"Today, this court stands in the way and rolls back decades of
precedent and momentous progress," Sotomayor wrote.
Sotomayor added that the "court cements a superficial rule of
colorblindness as a constitutional principle in an endemically
segregated society where race has always mattered and continues to
matter."
Blum's group alleged that the adoption by UNC, a public university,
of an admissions policy that was not race neutral violated the
constitutional equal protection provision. It contended Harvard, a
private university, violated Title VI of a landmark federal law
called the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars discrimination based
on race, color or national origin in federally funded programs or
activities.
Harvard's leaders said in a statement they would "determine how to
preserve, consistent with the court's new precedent, our essential
values." University of North Carolina System President Peter Hans
pledged to "follow the law."
AMERICAN HISTORY
The United States is a nation that long has struggled with issues of
race, dating back to its history of slavery of Black people that
ended only after a civil war, the civil rights movement of the 1950s
and 1960s and in recent years racial justice protests that followed
police killings of Black people.
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In a May Reuters/Ipsos U.S. poll, 49% of respondents agreed that
"due to racial discrimination, programs such as affirmative action
are necessary to help create equality," while 32% disagreed and 19%
were unsure.
Thursday's ruling did not explicitly say it was overruling landmark
precedent upholding affirmative action.
But conservative Justice Clarence Thomas in a concurring opinion
wrote that the court's previous Grutter v. Bollinger ruling that
colleges could consider race as one factor in admissions because of
the compelling interest of creating a diverse student body "is, for
all intents and purposes, overruled."
People on both sides of the issue demonstrated outside the court
following the ruling. Various Republican presidential candidates and
lawmakers lauded the decision for embracing "merit-based"
admissions. Democratic lawmakers called it a roadblock in the drive
for racial justice.
Blum celebrated the ruling, saying it "marks the beginning of the
restoration of the colorblind legal covenant that binds together our
multi-racial, multi-ethnic nation."
"The polarizing, stigmatizing and unfair jurisprudence that allowed
colleges and universities to use a student's race and ethnicity as a
factor to admit or reject them has been overruled. These
discriminatory admission practices undermined the integrity of our
country's civil rights laws," Blum said.
(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York and John Kruzel in
Washington; Aditional reporting by Doina Chiacu, Rami Ayyub, Nandita
Bose and Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington; Editing by Will Dunham)
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