WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 31: Proponents for affirmative action in higher education rally in front of the U.S. Supreme Court before oral arguments in Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina on October 31, 2022 in Washington, DC. The conservative Supreme Court will hear arguments for the two cases concerning the consideration of race as one factor in college admission at the two elite universities, which will have an effect on most institutions of higher education in the United States. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

US High Court Overturns Race-Based College Admissions

On Jun 29, 2023

The US Supreme Court has ruled that race can no longer be considered a factor in university admissions.

The landmark ruling upends decades-old US policies on so-called affirmative action, also known as positive discrimination.

Report says it is one of the most contentious issues in US education.

Affirmative action first made its way into policy in the 1960s and has been defended as a measure to increase diversity.

The White House said it was reviewing the seismic decision.

The Ruling

The cases heard by the justices last October concerned admissions at Harvard and the University Of North Carolina, UNC.

The justices have ruled in favour of an organisation called Students for Fair Admissions, founded by a conservative activist, Edward Blum.

The group argued that Harvard’s race-conscious admissions policy violated Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination based on race, colour, or national origin.

The decision by the court’s conservative majority fell largely along ideological lines with a 6-3 ruling against UNC and a 6-2 ruling against Harvard.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote: “Many universities have for too long wrongly concluded that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned, but the color of their skin.”

He wrote: “Such race-based admission programs must comply with strict scrutiny, may never use race as a stereotype or negative, and must at some point, end.”

Justice Roberts’s majority opinion said that while the UNC and Harvard admissions programmes were “well-intentioned”, they “fail each of these criteria.”

“Harvard’s admissions process rests on the pernicious stereotype that a black student can usually bring something that a white person cannot offer,'” he wrote.

The opinion, the Supreme Court noted, does not mean that universities are prohibited from considering an applicant’s “discussion of how race affects his or her life.”

Among the liberal judges to dissent was Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who wrote that the decision “rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress.”

She added that she believes the ruling means race can no longer achieve “critical benefits” and “cements a superficial rule of colorblindness as a constitutional principle in an endemically segregated society.”

Another dissenting justice, Ketanji Jackson, wrote: “With let-them-eat-cake obliviousness, today, the majority pulls the ripcord and announces ‘colorblindness for all’ by legal fiat.”

However, Justice Roberts wrote that the dissenting justices had ignored parts of the law they did not like.

“Most troubling of all is what the dissent must make these omissions to defend: a judiciary that picks winners and losers based on the color of their skin,” he said.

In a statement, UNC Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz said that while it is not the outcome that the university hoped for, it will review the decision and “take any necessary steps to comply with the law.”

Harvard has so far not commented on the ruling.

BBC/Christopher Ojilere