WASHINGTON (GA Recorder) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that two prominent universities’ consideration of race in acceptances violated the U.S. Constitution, effectively reshaping the role of affirmative action in the college admissions process throughout higher education.
In a 6-3 decision, Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, wrote that the admissions processes at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
“Because Harvard’s and UNC’s admissions 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 end points, those admissions programs cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause,” Roberts wrote.
“Many universities have for too long wrongly concluded that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned, but the color of their skin. This Nation’s constitutional history does not tolerate that choice,” Roberts continued.
Because Harvard is a private institution and UNC is a public institution, this decision affects higher education across the board.
The three liberal Justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.
Sotomayor wrote the dissenting opinion, and argued that while the equal protection clause “enshrines a guarantee of racial equality,” the Supreme Court “long ago concluded that this guarantee can be enforced through race-conscious means in a society that is not, and has never been, colorblind.”
“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,” she wrote. “The Court subverts the constitutional guarantee of equal protection by further entrenching racial inequality in education, the very foundation of our democratic government and pluralistic society.”
Sotomayor argued that Harvard and UNC both “have sordid legacies of racial exclusion.” UNC’s founders included slaveholders and members of the white supremacist group the Ku Klux Klan, and the university resisted integration until it finally admitted the first Black student in 1963, she wrote.
“To this day, UNC’s deep-seated legacy of racial subjugation continues to manifest itself in student life,” she wrote, noting that many buildings still bear the names of members of the Ku Klux Klan.
Sotomayor noted that slavery and racial subordination were integral to Harvard’s founding.
“It is against this historical backdrop that Harvard and UNC have reckoned with their past and its lingering effects,” she wrote.
Jackson joined that dissenting opinion but recused herself from the Harvard portion of the decision.
Jackson participated in the debate of the UNC case but not the Harvard case because she is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School and recently sat on the Harvard Board of Overseers, which is one of the two governing boards for Harvard University.
The decision stems from a 2014 lawsuit against Harvard College and a separate lawsuit against the University of North Carolina. The two suits sought to overturn Grutter v. Bollinger, which is currently how universities use race-conscious admissions.
Harvard and UNC have argued that race is one of the many factors that the universities consider in admissions, along with socioeconomic status and extracurricular activities, and they make admission decisions within the guidelines set by Grutter.
Both suits were filed by a group called Students for Fair Admissions, which is funded by Edward Blum, a conservative legal activist who has launched multiple lawsuits over what he sees as racial preferences in school admissions.
For the Harvard case, the group alleges that Harvard violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act because Asian American applicants are less likely to be admitted compared to similarly qualified Black, Latino, or Indigenous applicants. Title VI bars institutions that receive federal funding from discrimination on the basis of race.
The UNC case argues that because the university takes into consideration race in its admissions process, it violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.
Federal courts rejected Students for Fair Admissions’ arguments and sided with the universities.
Affirmative action stemmed from the civil rights movement of the 1960s when President Lyndon B. Johnson issued an executive order barring discrimination in the workplace based on race, religion — and later gender — by those entities that received federal contracts and subcontracts.
There are nine states that have banned race-based affirmative action from being implemented in public institutions: Florida, California, Michigan, Nebraska, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Idaho. Washington state rescinded its ban on affirmative action in 2022.
Georgia’s public colleges unaffected
The University System of Georgia said the ruling will not directly affect Georgia’s public campuses.
“At all 26 University System of Georgia institutions, race or ethnicity is not a determining factor in admissions,” the system said in a statement after the ruling was released. “USG follows the law with regards to the admission of students.”
In 2001, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled in favor of a trio of young women who were rejected from the University of Georgia, which, at the time, awarded a bonus to non-white and female applicants.
The court found that the admission process violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and UGA did not escalate the case.
But at least one Georgia admissions officer predicted poor outcomes for minority students ahead of the Supreme Court ruling against affirmative action.
“My biggest hope is the Supreme Court will not overturn decades of national precedent and will continue to allow colleges to responsibly use race as ‘one of many factors’ to recruit students, make admission decisions, award scholarships, and more,” wrote Rick Clark, assistant vice provost and executive director of undergraduate admission at Georgia Tech in a January post on the school’s admissions blog.
“However, my prediction is SCOTUS will make affirmative action illegal and we will see a downturn in underrepresented (undergraduate) student enrollments, particularly at state flagships and selective privates — the American higher education experience will be further devalued as a result,” he added. “And even with the reduced percentages of Black and brown students on many college campuses, we won’t see a reduction in the number of entitled, privileged people complaining about not getting into Stanvard each April.”
The ruling could affect Georgia’s private colleges and universities. Emory University, the largest private institution in the state, has considered prospective students’ race in applications. Emory was one of 15 universities to file a brief with the court asking them to uphold their right to do so.
The universities wrote that the ability to create a diverse student body strengthens the entire campus, and limiting their ability to do so would represent “an extraordinary intrusion into (the universities’) conduct of their academic affairs. Such an intrusion would break with this Court’s long tradition of granting universities wide latitude in their educational judgments—a tradition that protects universities’ own constitutional interests as well as the status of American higher education as the envy of the world.”
‘My heart breaks’
Current and former lawmakers and leaders released statements and posted on social media their reactions to the decision.
Less than an hour after the decision, former President Barack Obama, the nation’s first Black leader to hold the office, and former first lady Michelle Obama released statements that included links to scholarship funds and organizations focused on college access for minority students.
“So often, we just accept that money, power, and privilege are perfectly justifiable forms of affirmative action, while kids growing up like I did are expected to compete when the ground is anything but level,” Michelle Obama said.
“So today, my heart breaks for any young person out there who’s wondering what their future holds — and what kinds of chances will be open to them. And while I know the strength and grit that lies inside kids who have always had to sweat a little more to climb the same ladders, I hope and I pray that the rest of us are willing to sweat a little, too,” she continued.
Former President Obama said affirmative action “wasn’t perfect.”
“But it allowed generations of students like Michelle and me to prove we belonged. Now it’s up to all of us to give young people the opportunities they deserve — and help students everywhere benefit from new perspectives,” he said.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York called the decision “misguided” and said it “has put a giant roadblock in our country’s march toward racial justice.”
“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. These negative consequences could continue for generations, as the historic harms of exclusion and discrimination in education and society are exacerbated,” Schumer said in a statement.
Former South Carolina governor and 2024 GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley hailed the decision.
“The world admires America because we value freedom and opportunity. The Supreme Court reaffirmed those values today. Picking winners and losers based on race is fundamentally wrong. This decision will help every student — no matter their background — have a better opportunity to achieve the American Dream,” she said in a statement issued immediately following the decision.
Oral arguments
During oral arguments last year, members of the court’s conservative wing, who now make up a 6-3 majority, questioned if it is legal for universities to consider race and for how long such policies should endure, pointing to a 2003 case that predicted that affirmative action would no longer be needed in 25 years.
The case, Grutter vs. Bollinger, allowed the limited use of race to be considered in college admissions and held that race was merely one of many considerations given to an applicant. The case allowed the University of Michigan Law School to consider race in its admissions process in order to help create a diverse student body.
Justice Clarence Thomas, a conservative and the only Black man on the Supreme Court, pressed lawyers defending the schools’ policies on how diversity benefited education.
“I didn’t go to racially diverse schools, but there were educational benefits. And I’d like you to tell me expressly when a parent sends a kid to college that they don’t necessarily send them there to have fun or feel good or anything like that. They send them there to learn physics or chemistry or whatever they’re studying,” Thomas said to Ryan Park, the attorney representing UNC. “So tell me what the educational benefits are to that?”
During oral arguments in October of last year, supporters of affirmative action rallied outside the Supreme Court.
Ross Williams contributed to this report.
