SCOTUS rules
“The court holds that Harvard and UNC’s admissions programs violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment,” writes Amy Howe of SCOTUSblog.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that colleges and universities must stop considering race in admissions, forcing institutions of higher education to look for new ways to achieve diverse student bodies.
In a 6-3 decision, the court struck down admissions plans at Harvard and the University of North Carolina, the nation’s oldest private and public colleges, respectively.
There’s not enough time to comment on this 237 pg. opinion by Chief Justice Roberts in cases involving affirmative action admissions at Harvard and UNC, but here’s Amy Howe of SCOTUSblog again:
1)The court says that it has “permitted race-based admissions only within the confines of narrow restrictions. University programs must comply with strict scrutiny, they may never use race as a stereotype or negative, and — at some point — they must end.”
2)The Harvard and UNC programs, Roberts writes, “however well intentioned and implemented in good faith,” “fail each of these criteria.”
3)Here’s the end of the Court’s opinion: “nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise. But, despite the dissent’s assertion to the contrary, universities may not simply establish through application essays or other means the regime we hold unlawful today.”
“Sotomayor dissents, joined by Kagan and Jackson as it applies to the Harvard case. Jackson dissents in the UNC case, joined by SOtomayor and Kagan,” Howe writes.
Watch for commentary later. That is all.