WASHINGTON DC (WSAU) – The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina that affirmative action policies at universities violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
The court ruled 6-3 in favor of a group called Students for Fair Admissions who stated that they had unfairly used race to decide admissions. The group cited impressive test results of applicants who were white and Asian-American yet, they were turned away.
According to the New York Post, the decision overturned the Supreme Court’s decision in Grutter v. Bollinger from 2003, which established that universities might consider race when making admissions decisions to have a diverse student body.
“Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. “And the Equal Protection Clause, we have accordingly held, applies ‘without regard to any differences of race, of color, or nationality—it is ‘universal in [its] application.’”
Justice Clarence Thomas stated, “I’ve heard the word diversity a number of times, and I don’t have a clue what it means,” adding that he “doesn’t put much stock” in the arguments for diversity because he had heard the same justifications for segregation.
The New York Post reported that all five of Roberts’ colleagues on the court’s conservative wing—Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh, and Neil Gorsuch—joined him in the opinion.
Ketanji Brown Jackson, a Harvard College and Harvard Law School graduate, recused herself from the case involving the Ivy League school. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented in the case.
A recent Reuters poll found that 62% of Americans oppose college admissions decisions based on race.
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