The Supreme Court bans RACE as a factor in college admissions in a landmark affirmative action ruling
Supreme Court bans RACE as a factor in college admissions in landmark affirmative action ruling: Justices vote 6-3 to declare Harvard and UNC programs unconstitutional
- A student nonprofit had sued Harvard and the University of North Carolina over the issue
- Affirmative Action was designed to boost the number of students from other ethnicities
- Nine states across the country have already banned the practice
The Supreme Court has banned the consideration of race as a factor in college admissions.
Judges ruled in a 6-3 opinion Thursday that Harvard University and the University of North Carolina’s race-based affirmative admissions are unconstitutional.
“Both programs lack sufficiently focused and measurable objectives that warrant the use of race, inevitably use race in a negative way, contain racial stereotyping, and lack meaningful endpoints,” said the majority opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts.
The ruling ends a decades-old policy known as “affirmative action” that was designed to boost the number of black and Hispanic students in colleges.
The idea was to ensure that minority groups are fairly represented in university student organizations.
The Supreme Court heard the case brought by a nonprofit advocating for race-based policies at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina
Lawyers filed two cases on behalf of a nonprofit organization, Students for Fair Admissions, arguing they were disadvantaged by affirmative action.
They sued the University of North Carolina and Harvard University alleging that admission based on race is illegal.
In the Harvard case, professors were accused of discriminating against Asian-American applicants in order to increase student numbers among other groups.
Lawyers on behalf of the students argued that the University of North Carolina’s race-based policies violated the Constitution’s 14th Amendment on “equal protection under the laws.”
North Carolina students staged a demonstration in support of affirmative action as lawyers advocate for both sides
Harvard graduate Johnathan Loc helped organize sit-ins in support of race-based admissions
They also said it was illegal under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a landmark piece of legislation first proposed by John F. Kennedy that sought to outlaw racial discrimination.
It was born out of an anti-racist protest movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, the civil rights activist who was murdered in 1968.
Data published on the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) shows a mixed picture when it comes to diversity in US colleges across the country.
In 2021, the latest year for which figures are available, 60 percent of Asians aged 18 to 24 were studying at a university, compared to 38 percent of whites of the same age.
The figure is 37 percent for black youth, 33 percent for Hispanics and just 28 percent for students who describe themselves as American Indians or Alaska Natives, according to NCES.
Nine states have already made it illegal for admissions appeals to consider race in college applications.
They are Arizona, California, Florida, Idaho, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, and Washington.