Supreme Court Gets Rid Of Affirmative Action In College Admissions

Topline

Colleges and universities can no longer use race as a factor in their admissions decisions, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday, striking down the decades-long practice of affirmative action and upending schools’ admission tactics—which they warn could make future student bodies significantly less diverse.

Students enter the Admissions building on the campus of Harvard University on September 12, 2006, in … [+] Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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Key Facts

The court ruled 6-3 that Harvard University and the University of North Carolina’s admissions policies taking race into account are unconstitutional, with the court’s three liberal justices dissenting.

Students for Fair Admissions brought two cases against Harvard and UNC—representing private and public universities, respectively—arguing the practice violated the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause and disadvantaged white and Asian-American applicants.

Harvard and UNC had said the practice should be upheld, saying their admissions policies are in line with previous court rulings on the policy and that taking race into account helps to ensure a diverse student body, denying that the practice is discriminatory.

The court ruled affirmative action does violate the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, saying the universities’ policies aren’t operated in a way that’s in line with the limited exceptions for the clause’s guarantee of equal rights “without regard to any differences of race, of color, or of nationality.”

The universities’ practices don’t have a good enough justification that warrants using race in admissions, the court ruled, arguing affirmative action programs don’t comply with the Equal Protection Clause’s commands that “race may never be used as a ‘negative’ and that it may not operate as a stereotype,” because the practice resulted in fewer Asian American applicants being accepted into Harvard.

Basing admissions on race also “require[s] stereotyping” and means that universities “engag[e] in the offensive and demeaning assumption that [students] of a particular race, because of their race, think alike,” the court ruled, though the justices said admissions can still take race into account in terms of “how race affected the applicant’s life, so long as that discussion is concretely tied to a quality of character or unique ability that the particular applicant can contribute to the university.”

In an email addressed to members of the Harvard community shared by the New York Times, leaders at the university said it would comply with the court’s ruling but “reaffirm[ed]” the university’s belief that “deep and transformative teaching, learning and research depend upon a community comprising people of many backgrounds, perspectives and lived experiences” and said the university’s “doors remain open to those whom they have long been closed.”

Crucial Quote

Students “must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race. Many universities have for too long done just the opposite,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his majority opinion for the court. “And in doing so, they have concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned but the color of their skin. Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice.”

Chief Critic

The court’s ruling “rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, which was joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. “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.” (Jackson only dissented with regards to the UNC opinion, as she recused herself from the Harvard case.)

Surprising Fact

The decision does not apply to military academies, Roberts noted in a footnote, saying those schools were not parties in the case, and the ruling should not be applied to them given the “potentially distinct interests that military academies may present.”

What To Watch For

Universities have warned that getting rid of affirmative action would significantly impact the diversity of their student bodies, with Harvard arguing in court briefs that taking race out of its admissions process would reduce enrollment of Black students at the school from 14% to 6% of its student body, and Hispanic enrollment from 14% to 9%. It has also predicted the ruling will result in a 14% drop in students studying the humanities. At least nine states—Arizona, California, Florida, Idaho, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Washington—already have policies that don’t allow race to count in university admissions. The University of Michigan said in a court brief that after it adopted race-neutral policies, its Black population decreased by 44% between 2006 and 2021 as a result, even as Michigan’s population of college-age African Americans increased.

What We Don’t Know

How or if universities will be able to get around the court’s ruling to maintain diverse enrollment. Universities have already started putting strategies in place ahead of the court’s ruling, the Boston Globe reported in April, such as working more closely with community colleges and high schools in underserved areas, and 16 schools—including Yale and MIT—have banded together on an effort aimed at recruiting more rural students. University of Maryland education professor Julie J. Park told Axios a ruling overturning affirmative action action could also lead to standardized testing getting killed as an admissions requirement—as tests like the SAT historically benefit higher-income students—and the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO) issued guidance that recommends steps like appointing a review team to create strategies on how to comply with the ruling. Ultimately, however, the Associated Press notes efforts in states where affirmative action had already been eliminated have still not been able to fully make up for taking race into account in admissions, and it remains to be seen whether efforts will become more successful if affirmative action is now overturned on a national level.

Big Number

41.5%. That’s the approximate percentage of U.S. universities that take race into account when determining admissions, according to a study by the National Association for College Admissions Counseling that Harvard cited in a court brief, as well as 60% of more selective universities that accept 40% or fewer of their applicants.

Key Background

Affirmative action was first established in a 1965 executive order that told employers to “take affirmative action to ensure that equal opportunity is provided in all aspects of their employment.” The Supreme Court then sanctioned affirmative action for university admissions in 1978—though it ruled schools could not use racial quotas for admissions—and affirmed the practice in subsequent rulings in 2003 and 2016, though it struck down a “point system” at the University of Michigan that automatically gave applications from underrepresented racial minorities enough points to virtually guarantee admission. The Supreme Court agreed to take up the Harvard and UNC cases in January 2022 after lower courts sided with the schools and upheld affirmative action, prompting SFFA to appeal the case to the high court.