President Joe Biden on Thursday condemned the Supreme Court’s decision that ended the confirmation action for college admissions, arguing that discrimination still exists in America.
“This is not a normal court,” Biden said of the conservative majority bench that ruled that race-based admissions programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina (UNC) are unconstitutional.
“I know today’s court decision is a great disappointment to so many people, including me, but we cannot let the decision be a permanent setback,” he said in a speech in the Roosevelt Room of the White House.
In two rulings on Thursday, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority overturned admissions plans at Harvard and the University of North Carolina, the country’s oldest private and public colleges.
The ruling ended a decades-old policy designed to boost the number of Black, Asian and Latino students in universities. The vote was 6-3 in the North Carolina case and 6-2 in the Harvard case – with Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson retiring.
“This is not a normal court,” President Joe Biden said of the Supreme Court
In his remarks, Biden acknowledged that many Americans believe affirmative action gives unfair advantages to minorities when it comes to college admissions, but he noted that is not the case.
‘Many people mistakenly think that positive discrimination ensures that unqualified students are admitted before qualified students. This is not how university admissions work,” he said.
He argued that universities create a pool of qualified students and add other factors from there, such as grades and race.
The president encouraged universities to still consider the “hardships” students had to overcome to enroll in college and suggested that schools “take into account the adversity a student has overcome.”
Discrimination still exists in America. Today’s decision does not change that. It’s a simple fact. If a student has overcome – had to overcome – adversity on the path to education, the college should recognize and value it,” he said.
He said colleges “shouldn’t give up their commitment to ensuring they keep up with bodies of diverse backgrounds and experiences that reflect all of America.”
He criticized higher education for remaining a privileged domain.
“Today, for too many schools, the only people who benefit are the wealthy and well-connected. The odds have been pinned against working people for far too long. We need a higher education system that works for everyone from Appalachia to Atlanta and beyond,” he said.
A protester protests outside the Supreme Court after the ruling
Chief Justice John Roberts was joined in the majority opinion by Republican-appointed justices Amy Coney Barrett, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. Liberal district court justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan disagreed in the North Carolina case; Jackson withdrew from the Harvard case
The universities were sued by Students for Fair Admissions, a conservative non-profit organization, over their race-based admissions policies in 2014, saying they violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment . The cases made their way through lower courts, which sided with Harvard and UNC, before reaching the Supreme Court for oral argument last year.
“Because the Harvard and UNC admissions programs lack sufficiently focused and measurable objectives that justify the use of race, inevitably use race in a negative way, involve racial stereotyping, and lack meaningful endpoints, those admissions programs cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause,” reads the majority opinion, written by Chief Justice John Roberts.
Roberts was joined in the majority opinion by Republican-appointed justices Amy Coney Barrett, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.
Liberal District Court Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan disagreed with the North Carolina case. Brown Jackson withdrew from the Harvard case because she had served on an advisory board of directors.
Judge Thomas, the second black judge appointed in history, called race-based admissions “motionless” and “designed to ensure a certain racial mix in their new classes.”
He continued with his concurring opinion, which he read out in a rare move from the bench, stating clearly that despite being “painfully aware” of discrimination against other individuals of his race, he hopes all Americans will be treated equally under the law.
While I am painfully aware of the social and economic devastation that has befallen my race and all who are discriminated against, my abiding hope remains that this country will live up to its principles so clearly stated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. United States: That all men are created equal, are equal citizens, and should be treated equally before the law,” Thomas wrote.
Democratic nominee Justice Sotomayor said in a dissenting opinion that the decision “rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress.”
“The Court upholds a superficial rule of color blindness as a constitutional principle in an endemic segregated society,” she continued.
In her separate dissenting opinion, Brown Jackson — the court’s first black female judge — called the decision “truly a tragedy for all of us.”
Jackson wrote, “With let-them-eat-cake ignorance, the majority today are pulling the string and announcing ‘color blindness for all’ through legal fiat. But making race irrelevant in the law doesn’t make it so in life.’
Harvard, in particular, was accused of it violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, a landmark piece of legislation first proposed by John F. Kennedy that sought to outlaw racial discrimination. Title VI “prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in programs or activities that receive federal funds or other federal financial assistance.”
The case argued that Asian-American students, in particular, are illegally disadvantaged by affirmative action policies because they score lower on Harvard’s vague “personal rating scale,” particularly on “likability” ratings and ‘positive personality’, compared to other applicants.
The UNC case also looked at what the university could factor into admissions practices without the use of race and how it would affect diversity on campus. Both Harvard and UNC have maintained that their use of race in admissions does not discriminate against Asian Americans.
Activists demonstrate while the Supreme Court hears arguments
Two former presidents had two different opinions.
Former President Donald Trump, the current Republican presidential front-runner, wrote on Truth Social that the decision marked “a great day for America.” People with extraordinary skills and everything else necessary for success, including future greatness for our country, are finally being rewarded.”
Former President Barack Obama said in a statement that affirmative action “enabled 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 let students everywhere benefit from new perspectives.’