The Supreme Court issued a divided ruling on a pair of challenges to affirmative action policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina, with potential implications across higher education and beyond. The court ruled against the programs — saying in the majority opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts that the systems in place “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.” The Associated Press has the story:
SCOUT curbs affirmative action programs
Newslooks- WASHINGTON (AP)
The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down affirmative action in college admissions, forcing institutions of higher education to look for new ways to achieve diverse student bodies.
The court’s conservative majority overturned admissions plans at Harvard and the University of North Carolina, the nation’s oldest private and public colleges, respectively.
Chief Justice John Roberts said that for too long universities 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.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in dissent that the decision “rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress.”
In a separate dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson — the court’s first Black female justice — called the decision “truly a tragedy for us all.”
The Supreme Court had twice upheld race-conscious college admissions programs in the past 20 years, including as recently as 2016.
But that was before the three appointees of former President Donald Trump joined the court. At arguments in late October, all six conservative justices expressed doubts about the practice, which had been upheld under Supreme Court decisions reaching back to 1978.
Lower courts also had upheld the programs at both UNC and Harvard, rejecting claims that the schools discriminated against white and Asian-American applicants.
