THE HARVARD CRIMSON THE UNIVERSITY DAILY, EST. 1873
| VOLUME CL, NO. 16
RALLY
LEGACY
Protesters Rally in Washington After Court Decision
Supreme Court, Biden Take Aim at Legacy Admissions
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| CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
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FRIDAY, JUNE 30, 2023
EXTRA
JULIAN J. GIORDANO—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER, SAMI E. TURNER—CRIMSON DESIGNER
Supreme Court Rules to Strike Down Affirmative Action BY MICHELLE N. AMPONSAH AND EMMA H. HAIDAR CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
The Supreme Court severely curtailed affirmative action in higher education admissions, declaring Harvard’s race-conscious admissions policy unconstitutional in a ruling against the school Thursday. The 6-2 decision — widely expected by legal scholars due to the Court’s strong conservative majority — marks a major setback for Harvard, which has faced scrutiny for its admissions practices since anti-affirmative action group Students for Fair Admissions first filed suit in 2014. The SFFA suit alleged the College’s admissions processes discriminate against Asian Americans in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans institutions that receive federal
funds from discriminating “on the grounds of race, color, or national origin.” The Supreme Court also ruled against the University of North Carolina and its admissions policies in an 6-3 decision. Justices heard the suits, both brought by SFFA, on the same day last October. In the majority opinion authored by Chief Justice John Roberts ’76, the Court ruled that Harvard’s and UNC’s admission policies violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment and ruled that the highest standard of judicial review — strict scrutiny — must be applied. “University programs must comply with strict scrutiny, they may never use race as a stereotype or negative, and — at some point — they must end,” the opinion states. “Respondents’ admissions systems — however well intentioned and implemented in good faith — fail each of these
Here’s What the Supreme Court Said About Affirmative Action
criteria.” The court held, however, that universities may still consider how an applicant’s race has shaped their personal identity. “At the same time, as all parties agree, 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,” the majority opinion states. In a dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia M. Sotomayor stated that the Court’s ruling “rolls back decades of precedent.” “The Court subverts the constitutional guarantee of equal protection by further entrenching racial inequality in education, the very foundation of our democratic government and pluralistic society,” she added.
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BY RAHEM D. HAMID AND NEIL S. SHAH CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
The Supreme Court ruled against Harvard and the University of North Carolina in a landmark decision Thursday morning, radically restricting the consideration of race in college admissions. In a 40-page opinion authored by Chief Justice John Roberts ’76, all six members of the Court’s conservative wing ruled that Harvard’s and UNC’s admissions programs violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment states that all U.S. citizens must receive “equal protection of the laws” and that their “privileges or immunities” cannot be curtailed without due process of law. Students for Fair Admissions,
the group that first sued Harvard in 2014, had filed a separate lawsuit against UNC — but the Supreme Court issued one ruling for both cases. Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson ’92 did not participate in any part of the Harvard case, having recused herself due to her former position on the Board of Overseers, the University’s second-highest governing body. She authored a dissent in the UNC case. Students for Fair Admissions — the anti-affirmative action group that sued Harvard and UNC in 2014 — had asked the Supreme Court to overturn Grutter v. Bollinger, its landmark 2003 decision that preserved race-conscious admissions. But the Supreme Court did not go that far. Instead, the Court ruled that Harvard’s and UNC’s admissions policies did not satisfy “strict
scrutiny” — the most stringent standard of judicial review that all exceptions to the Equal Protection Clause must pass. Roberts wrote that while the stated goals of Harvard’s and UNC’s admissions policies are “commendable” including exposing students to diverse outlooks and “training future leaders,” these are “not sufficiently coherent for purposes of strict scrutiny.” Per Richard H. Sander ’78 — a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles — the “thrust of the decision” was not to say that “earlier courts were wrong” but that “earlier courts tried to give universities assurance and universities were abusing the system so we’re just going to stop it.” “I was surprised that they didn’t explicitly overrule Grutter — for example — but after reading
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EXPLAINER
OP-ED
REACTIONS
Here’s What You Need to Know
The Court Killed Campus Diversity. What Now?
Harvard Faculty Dismayed With Court Ruling
PAGE 3. We break down the basics of the lawsuit
PAGE 6. The admissions landscape is now stacked against students of color. The Supreme Court has sent a clear message: College is for the privileged.
PAGE 8. Several Harvard faculty members said they were disappointed — though not surprised — in the hours following the Supreme Court’s decision.
brought by Students for Fair Admissions against Harvard’s affirmative action policies.
