Legal experts say affirmative action could be the next decades-old precedent to be reversed by SCOTUS.
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For more than 40 years, American universities have been allowed to factor in race when deciding which applicants to admit.
That could soon end. The Supreme Court is hearing two separate cases today that challenge race-based admissions policies, aka “affirmative action,” at the University of North Carolina and Harvard. Given the 6–3 stranglehold conservatives have on the court, legal experts say affirmative action could be the next decades-old precedent to be reversed by SCOTUS, following Roe v. Wade.
That precedent: In 1978, SCOTUS ruled that race could be one of several factors considered in admissions decisions, but banned the implementation of racial quotas. That decision was upheld in a different case in 2003.
What are the arguments?
The pro-affirmative action camp, which includes universities and business groups, argues that diversity in higher education would decline in a race-neutral admissions process due to ongoing discrimination against Black and Hispanic students. Plus, there are centuries of racial harm that still need to be rectified, they say. UNC didn’t admit Black students until 1955 and when those students arrived, they were forced to live in a separate dorm and walk through a campus that was full of memorials to segregationists.
The anti-affirmative action camp contends that UNC and Harvard are violating civil rights laws by treating people differently due to their race—specifically, by discriminating against white and Asian American applicants. The group bringing both challenges before SCOTUS is led by one man, Edward Blum, who calls himself a “one-trick pony” in his quest to end racial classifications in public policy.
And what does the public think? It’s a little murky, because so much depends on how you frame the question. In a 2021 Gallup poll, 62% of Americans supported affirmative action policies for racial minorities. In March of this year, however, a Pew survey found that 74% of Americans do not support factoring in race and ethnicity to college admissions, per the AP.
Looking ahead…the Supreme Court likely won’t issue a ruling until late spring 2023.
