June 29th 2023.
The Supreme Court has recently issued a ruling that has reversed decades of efforts to eliminate unlawful racial discrimination and increase the representation of minorities in higher education. On June 29, the Supreme Court decided that the race-conscious admissions systems of Harvard College and the University of North Carolina were unconstitutional. This marks the end of affirmative action admission policies at colleges and universities.
Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the majority opinion with the help of concurrent options of all five of his fellow conservative justices, including Black Justice Clarence Thomas. Roberts wrote that Harvard's and UNC's highly selective admissions process was not in line with the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause.
"Many universities have for too long wrongly concluded that the touchstone of an individual's identity is not challenged bested, skills built, or lessons learned, but the color of their skin. This Nation's constitutional history does not tolerate that choice," Roberts wrote.
Liberal Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to serve on the top U.S. judicial body, was one of three justices who filed a dissenting opinion. Jackson argued that deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life, and that the majority decision makes things worse, not better. Fellow liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor also hit back hard against the majority decision, indicating it was entrenching racial inequality in education and rolling back decades of progress.
Thomas, however, blasted Brown Jackson in his concurring opinion. He acknowledged that he made it to Yale Law School due to affirmative action, but argued that Jackson's arguments "lock blacks into a seemingly perpetual inferior caste."
The office of Barack and Michele Obama released a statement in the aftermath of the decision. Michelle Obama recalled her experience in college as one of the few Black students on her campus, and wondered if some students were granted special consideration for admissions through affirmative action. She called for the enactment of policies that reflect our values of equity and fairness, and to make those values real in all of our schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods. Barack Obama echoed this sentiment, asking us all to give young people the opportunities they deserve, and to help students everywhere benefit from new perspectives.
[This article has been trending online recently and has been generated with AI. Your feed is customized.]
[Generative AI is experimental.]
