The U.S. Supreme Court today dealt a major blow to college admissions offices that discriminate against Asian and white applicants.
The ruling comes after a lengthy legal battle initiated by Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina in November 2014, accusing both institutions of engaging in unfair and illegal racial discrimination in their admissions policies.
The case presented by SFFA challenged the use of racial or ethnic classifications and preferences in admissions and sought to overturn the Supreme Court’s previous ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger, which allowed for the limited use of such policies. SFFA argued that all institutions of higher education should be prohibited from using race as a factor in admissions decisions.
Specifically, SFFA contended that Harvard University violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by penalizing Asian-American applicants and engaging in racial balancing. The organization accused Harvard of overemphasizing race and failing to consider workable race-neutral alternatives. One of the most controversial allegations was that Harvard’s admissions office demerited Asian-American applicants’ personalities, claiming they lacked leadership, confidence, and likability.
Similarly, SFFA accused the University of North Carolina of violating the U.S. Constitution and Title VI by rejecting a race-neutral alternative to racial admissions preferences without demonstrating that such an alternative would significantly impact academic quality or overall student-body diversity. According to SFFA, UNC rejected any race-neutral alternatives, even if they could enhance diversity.
In its ruling, the Supreme Court acknowledged that its previous decision in Grutter v. Bollinger, handed down in June 2003, had been flawed.
The court today stated that it had permitted race-based admissions only within narrow restrictions, requiring university programs to adhere to strict scrutiny and prohibiting the use of race as a stereotype or negative. The court emphasized that such policies should have an expiration date, signaling that at some point, they must come to an end.
The implications of this ruling are expected to reverberate throughout the education system, impacting college admissions practices across the country. While affirmative action policies aimed at promoting diversity on campuses have long been a contentious issue, this Supreme Court ruling represents a significant shift towards a more race-neutral approach to college admissions.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh said in his concurring opinion, “In light of the Constitution’s text, history, and precedent, the Court’s decision today appropriately respects and abides by Grutter’s explicit temporal limit on the use of race-based affirmative action in higher education.”
In the ruling, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented. Sotomayor’s dissent said, in part, that the decision “rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress. It holds that race can no longer be used in a limited way in college admissions to achieve such critical benefits.”
This story is breaking and will be updated.
