Supreme Court bans RACE as a factor in college admissions in key affirmative ruling: judges vote 6-3 that Harvard and UNC programs are unconstitutional
- Judges ruled Thursday 6-3 that Harvard University’s and the University of North Carolina’s race-based affirmative action approvals are unconstitutional
- The aim of the funding measures was to increase the number of students from minority groups
The Supreme Court on Thursday banned colleges from using race as a factor in student admissions in a landmark affirmative action ruling.
Judges ruled 6-3 Thursday that the race-based admissions policies of Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) are unconstitutional.
“Both programs lack sufficiently focused and measurable goals to justify the use of race, inevitably use race in negative ways, incorporate racial stereotypes, and lack meaningful endpoints,” Chief Justice Roberts said in majority opinion.
Roberts was supported in the majority opinion by Republican-appointed Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. The court’s liberal judges, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, disagreed.
The ruling ends a decades-old policy called “Affirmative Action” aimed at increasing the number of black and Hispanic students in college. The idea was to ensure that minority groups were adequately represented in the university student body.
The Supreme Court heard the case of a nonprofit that advocated race-based policies at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina
Lawyers filed two cases on behalf of the non-profit organization Students for Fair Admissions, arguing that they had been disadvantaged by affirmative action.
They sued the University of North Carolina and Harvard University on the grounds that admissions based on race were illegal.
In the Harvard case, professors were accused of discriminating against Asian-American applicants to increase student enrollment among other groups.
Attorneys on behalf of the students argued that North Carolina College’s race-based policies violated the 14th Amendment of “equal protections under the law.”
Both Harvard and UNC have asserted that the use of race in admissions does not constitute discrimination against Asian Americans.
North Carolina students held a demonstration in support of Affirmative Action as advocates for both sides
Johnathan Loc, a Harvard graduate, helped organize sit-ins in support of race-based licensing
They also said it was illegal under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a landmark law first proposed by John F. Kennedy designed to outlaw racial discrimination.
It emerged from an anti-racist protest movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the civil rights leader who was assassinated in 1968.
Data released by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) paints a mixed picture when it comes to diversity in US colleges across the country.
In 2021, the most recent year for which figures are available, 60 percent of Asians between the ages of 18 and 24 were enrolled in college, compared to 38 percent of whites of the same age.
According to NCES, the number is 37 percent among black youth, 33 percent among Hispanics, and just 28 percent among students who identify as Native American or Alaskan Native.
Nine states have already banned admissions professions from considering race in college applications.
These are Arizona, California, Florida, Idaho, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Washington.