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“The Supreme Court severely limited, if not effectively ended, the use of affirmative action in college admissions on Thursday. By a vote of 6-3, the justices ruled that the admissions programs used by the University of North Carolina and Harvard College violate the Constitution’s equal protection clause, which bars racial discrimination by government entities.” SCOTUSblog
Here’s our prior coverage of the case. The Flip Side
“The evidence is overwhelming that Harvard actively discriminated against Asian applicants. As Chief Justice John Roberts notes in his majority opinion, a Black student in the fourth-lowest academic decile had a higher chance of admission to Harvard than an Asian student in the top decile… The University of North Carolina — which was a defendant in a separate case about its admissions process — also imposed far tougher admission standards on Asian students…
“There is no American population that should face discrimination because of its race. But it’s particularly unjust to target a community for discriminatory treatment that’s been targeted for so much of American history. Asian Americans faced immigration restrictions and segregation. The United States government even interned many of its Japanese American citizens in government camps during World War II…
“As if these facts weren’t bad enough, Harvard specifically rejected alternative, race-blind formulations that could have achieved comparable student diversity.”
David French, New York Times
“Universities, says Roberts, can consider an ‘applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.’ However, consideration of that discussion ‘must be tied to that student’s courage and determination,’ or ‘that student’s unique ability to contribute to the university.’ In other words, said Roberts, ‘the student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual – not on the basis of race.’…
“In a scathingly accurate assessment of college administrators everywhere in the final paragraph of the majority opinion, the Court said that ‘universities have for too long’ not treated students as individuals, but 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.’”
Hans von Spakovsky, Daily Signal
“It is not the black Americans most owed restitution by the United States—American Descendants of Slavery—who benefit the most from race-based college admissions. Many of the blacks enrolled at elite universities are first or second-generation Americans. Between half and two-thirds of the black Harvard students were West Indian and African immigrants or their children in a 2004 study… And most of the remaining black students come from affluent families, leaving virtually no spots for the type of diversity most claim is needed…
“It would be more beneficial to black students if we focused on the quality of K-12 education, promoting enrollment in community colleges, minimizing the overemphasis on elite universities, and de-stigmatizing the trades, instead of trying to encourage every student to go to a four-year college. All of these would promote real equality. But affirmative action in college admissions always had the implication that the government's use of racial preference is the only chance young black Americans have for future success. Nothing could be further from real equality.”
Charles Love, Newsweek
“As Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, all Roberts is doing is using the 14th Amendment to cement inequality, the very thing it was designed to combat… Any good-faith ‘originalist’ argument would have to acknowledge that the authors of the 14th Amendment contemplated the use of affirmative action, and we know that because affirmative action was used in their own lifetimes, after the ratification of the amendment.”
Elie Mystal, The Nation
“On June 4, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson laid out the intellectual and moral basis for affirmative action. Speaking less than a year after the passage of the Civil Rights Act and two months before the passage of the Voting Rights Act, he invoked a metaphor that remains resonant nearly 60 years later: ‘You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, ‘You are free to compete with all the others,’ and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.’…
“Affirmative action was at best a modest form of recompense for centuries of exploitation and exclusion — far short of the reparations favored by more than three in four Black Americans. But it produced important gains: greater Black representation in elite colleges and professional schools, a growing African American middle class and more members of minorities in positions of leadership in key institutions. Affirmative action’s elimination is a monumental setback for racial justice.”
Jerome Karabel, New York Times
“[Roberts] analogizes affirmative action to the kind of public school segregation that was struck down in Brown. Indeed, Roberts roots his opinion in Brown’s foundational moral conclusion: ‘Separate cannot be equal.’ But affirmative action is the opposite of segregation… A long list of American leaders shared their view that more diverse campuses benefit society…
“Generals and admirals warned that less diverse campuses mean a less secure nation. Medical experts warned that the conclusion Roberts reached in Harvard will lead to unnecessary deaths… [A] long list of America’s largest employers — a list that includes companies as diverse as Apple, Levi Strauss, Northrop Grumman, Starbucks, and United Airlines — [warned] that American business will be less dominant…
“The Supreme Court is taking one hell of a gamble by assuming that it knows better than leaders and institutions with considerably more knowledge and expertise than any of the justices themselves.”
Ian Millhiser, VoxSome argue, “Because progressives are uncomfortable with straightforwardly defending affirmative action, they often pivot to whataboutism regarding admissions benefits that primarily benefit white students — legacies, athletes, donors’ kids, people from rural states. And there are a lot of good criticisms of those programs. But I think one of the biggest is that they are all ways of assuring that the burden of adjustment related to affirmative actions falls, unfairly, on Asians, while ensuring the most privileged strata of white society are insulated.”
Matthew Yglesias, Slow Boring
“While the ruling has attracted strong condemnation from supporters of race-conscious college admissions, polling suggests that a majority of Americans of all racial groups disapprove of these policies. A 2019 Pew Research poll found that 73 percent of all Americans, including 62 percent of black Americans and 65 percent of Hispanic Americans, did not think that colleges should be able to consider an applicant's race or ethnicity when making decisions about student admissions…
“The best argument against affirmative action in college admissions is a simple one: All people are created equal and should be treated equally before the law. Treating individuals differently based on their race is an unacceptable affront to this idea, even if it is in the service of a well-intentioned goal. Taking this idea further, treating college applicants differently based on any demographic trait—including legacy status—offends this same principle.”
Emma Camp, Reason
