In another major reversal, the Supreme Court on Thursday struck down affirmative action policies at colleges and universities that use race as a factor in deciding who is admitted.
In a pair of decisions, the six conservative justices ruled that Harvard, the nation’s oldest private college, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the oldest state university, were illegally discriminating based on race and violating the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
“Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it,” wrote Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. in his majority decision. “And the Equal Protection Clause, we have accordingly held, applies ‘without regard to any differences of race, of color, or of nationality — it is ‘universal in [its] application.’”
At the same time, the court appears to have offered a roadmap of sorts for schools to continue considering factors that might be related to race, such as experiences of discrimination.
“Nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise,” Roberts wrote. “A benefit to a student who overcame racial discrimination, for example, must be tied to that student’s courage and determination. Or a benefit to a student whose heritage or culture motivated him or her to assume a leadership role or attain a particular goal must be tied to that student’s unique ability to contribute to the university. In other words, the student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual — not on the basis of race.”
The vote was 6-3 in the North Carolina case and 6-2 in the Harvard case, from which Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a former member of Harvard’s Board of Overseers, recused herself.
In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the limited use of race in affirmative action had helped bring about equal opportunity in higher education.
“Today, this court stands in the way and rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress,” she wrote. “It holds that race can no longer be used in a limited way in college admissions to achieve such critical benefits. In so holding, 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.”
Justices Elena Kagan and Jackson agreed in the North Carolina case.
The high court overturned rulings dating back to 1978 that held that universities had a compelling interest in seeking racial diversity on campus and could consider the race of Black and Latino students as a plus factor when choosing among well-qualified applicants.
Those precedents had remained under challenge from conservatives, who argued that the Constitution and the civil rights law prohibited discrimination based on race, even where the consideration of race was intended to increase diversity and correct past injustices.
A group called Students for Fair Admissions, created by financier Edward Blum, accused Harvard of discriminating against Asian American applicants in favor of Black and Latino applicants.
Affirmative action, like abortion, has been a target of the conservative legal movement for decades, and the court’s liberal precedents on these two major issues were put in danger when President Trump and Senate Republicans succeeded in appointing three new justices.
The impact of the rulings is likely to be limited in California, however. The University of California is already prohibited from using race as an admissions factor under ballot measures approved by voters in 1996 and 2020. Eight other states have followed California’s lead in forbidding race-conscious admissions policies at state universities, including Michigan, Florida, and Washington.
But the ruling in the Harvard case extends that prohibition to private universities, including Stanford and USC.
President Joe Biden declared he "strongly, strongly" disagreed with the Supreme Court ruling against affirmative action policies in college admissions.
The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Students for Fair Admissions, which filed lawsuits in 2014 against Harvard and the University of North Carolina, challenging their admissions process including race consideration. The group claimed that affirmative action policies led to discrimination against Asian and white students.
Speaking at the White House on Thursday, Biden said the Supreme Court "once again walked away from decades of precedent" with their latest rulings.
Biden quoted from a dissent written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor in which she said the rulings "rolled back decades of precedent."
"I agree with that statement from the dissent," the president said.
He added that "we cannot let this be the last word" and called for laws that "protect diversity."
He recommended a new standard for universities to remain committed to diverse student bodies. Biden said the "adversity" a qualified student goes through is should be considered instead of race.
Colleges, the president said, "should not abandon their commitment" to "diverse" student bodies that "reflect all of America."
"Discrimination still exists in America," Biden echoed three times. "Today's decision does not change that."
He also said he is directing the Department of Education will be recommending "practices" that increase diversity on campuses, which could include targeting "legacy admissions."
Asked by a reporter if he was dealing with a "rogue court," Biden said: "This is not a normal court."
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion barring universities from considering race in their admissions process. The votes were 6-3 in the UNC case and 6-2 for Harvard.
"The Harvard and UNC admissions programs cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause," Roberts wrote. "Both programs lack sufficiently focused and measurable objectives warranting the use of race, unavoidably employ race in a negative manner, involve racial stereotyping, and lack meaningful endpoints. We have never permitted admissions programs to work in that way, and we will not do so today."
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote a scathing dissenting opinion, calling the majority opinion "let-them-eat-cake obliviousness."
The NAACP, former First Lady Michelle Obama, and others quickly condemned the Supreme Court's landmark decision, which will remake admissions policies for universities and selective colleges.
Leftist politicians and pundits expressed rage on Thursday after a landmark Supreme Court decision was released that struck down the race-based admission policies of Harvard and the University of North Carolina.
In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court court ruled that the race-based admissions programs at the schools violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, drawing the ire of prominent Democrat politicians and leftist commentators.
Former House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said the ruling diminished “hard-fought progress for racial justice.”
“Chief Justice Roberts’ majority opinion does violence to justice and fairness in America,” she wrote on Twitter. “In contrast, Justice Jackson’s powerful dissent is inspiring to us, as we continue to fight to widen the path to success for all Americans.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said the decision was “misguided.” “The Supreme Court ruling has put a giant roadblock in our country’s march for racial justice,” Schumer said. “The consequences of this decision will be felt immediately and across the country, as students of color will face an admission cycle next year with fewer opportunities to attend the same colleges and universities than their parents and older siblings.”
Former President Barack Obama said the court’s ruling would hamper minorities’ educational opportunities.
“Affirmative action was never a complete answer in the drive towards a more just society. But for generations of students who had been systematically excluded from most of America’s key institutions – it gave us the chance to show we more than deserved a seat at the table. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s recent decision, it’s time to redouble our effort,” Obama said.
ABC News commentator and former acting Democratic National Committee chair Donna Brazile said that the justices that supported the decision “whitewash the Constitution.”
“I am shocked by the fact that in the majority opinion, they basically whitewash the Constitution in a way that basically says we were right all along. The 14 Amendment, the equal protection clause, would guarantee us a color-blind society,” she said. “And now the most effective tool, an affirmative tool, to eliminate barriers, a tool that would give us the opportunity is now weakened.”
Activist and MSNBC commentator Al Sharpton also lamented the decision.
“I think that this is tantamount to sticking a dagger in our back because what they have said now is that it is unconstitutional to even consider race,” he said. “It is completely a throw to the wind the history of why we needed affirmative action in the first place.”
Princeton professor Eddie Glaude predicted “a kind of segregated higher education landscape” would emerge.
The majority opinion, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, said that universities could allow applicants to mention personal experiences of racism when applying for colleges, but that there could not be explicit policies based on the applicant’s race.
“Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it,” Roberts wrote in the opinion for the majority.
The ruling came after a group called Students for Fair Admissions sued the schools, accusing the institutions of unfairly factoring race into their admissions processes. The group pointed to the high test scores of Asian-American and white applicants who were rejected.
The court’s decision was widely celebrated by conservatives, who said it was a win for merit-based academic admissions.
“Affirmative action is systemic discrimination. I’m thankful the Supreme Court held this discrimination violates the constitution [sic]. Admissions should be decided on merit — not by the color of skin,” Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) wrote on Twitter.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) said conservatives should be careful not to allow universities to get around the ruling.
“When the schools still take steps to accomplish the race-based objective, will we still fund higher ed at high levels and subsidize loans to those schools? Asking for a friend…,” he said.
Yukong Zhao of the Asian American Coalition lauded today's landmark Supreme Court decision to bar colleges and universities from considering race as a specific basis for admission.
"Today is a historic victory for Asians and all Americans. After fighting against the anti-Asian discrimination in college admission for 35 years, today we finally see the justice of the US Supreme Court provide equal protection of the law to all communities," Zhao said.
The organization says its advocacy focuses on campaigns and legal actions against educational institutions that it believes discriminate against the Asian American community.
Zhao told CNN: "Our children will no longer be treated as second-class citizens in college admissions. This is a victory for all Americans because they should preserve American democracy, which is the bedrock of the American dream."
"We want all children to be judged by their merit and the content of their character," he said.
The Supreme Court ruling that says colleges and universities cannot rely on race in admissions is expected to lead to a range of responses from higher education, according to Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law.
It will have two distinct sets of effects, depending on the state where the school is located:
- “In those states that have already banned racial preferences and gone after diversity statements and other softer uses of race in admissions, the decision is going to make it virtually impossible for colleges and universities to take race into account in any specific admissions decision,” he said.
- “But in states that continue to permit colleges and universities to take race into account, we’ll surely see efforts to encourage the kinds of uses the majority does not expressly disavow — whether in diversity statements or elsewhere,” he added. And in those more liberal states, Vladeck said there will likely be “litigation challenging those efforts as being inconsistent with the spirit, if not the letter, of today’s decision.”