On June 29, 2023 the United States Supreme Court voted that affirmative action programs in colleges were unconstitutional, which therefore restricted higher education’s use of affirmative action.
This vote followed two lawsuits filed by the Students for Fair Admissions(SFFA) group against both Harvard University and the University of North Carolina(UNC) in November of 2014.
The SFFA accused the universities of violating the Equal Protection Clause listed in the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution as noted by the Legal Defense Fund.
The final rulings were 6-3 in the UNC case and 6-2 in the Harvard case.
Among those who voted in favor of the SFFA’s argument was Justice Clarence Thomas, who has both supported and criticized the legislation, as noted by an article from the Washington Post.
Roberts’ opinions also noted that the SFFA “filed separate lawsuits against Harvard College and the University of North Carolina, arguing that their race-based admissions programs violated, respectively, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 252, 42 U. S. C. §2000d et seq., and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment” as noted by the opinion document.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor authored the dissenting opinion, in which she stated that “majority opinion is ‘not grounded in law or fact and contravenes the vision of equality embodied in the Fourteenth Amendment’”.
Sotomayor also argued that the Court’s decision “subverts the constitutional guarantee of equal protection by further entrenching racial inequality in education, the very foundation of our democratic government and pluralistic society” according to the article from CBS News.
The SFFA, a nonprofit organization headed by anti-affirmative action activist Edward Blum, was composed of “more than 20,000 students, parents, and others who believe that racial classifications and preferences in college admissions are unfair, unnecessary, and unconstitutional” according to their website.
Following the SFFA lawsuit, students at both Harvard and UNC grouped together against the SFFA lawsuits, and expressed “support for race-conscious programs that promote greater racial diversity and inclusion” according to the American Bar Association.
In the 2018 district court proceedings for the lawsuit the SFFA brought against Harvard University, the diverse coalition of students from the university were permitted to submit testimonies “in support of race-conscious admissions during the three-week trial”. Whereas the SFFA did not present students to testify, submit student files “containing implicit or explicit discriminatory statements”, nor did they consult students the American Bar Association noted.
Shortly after the ruling Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker released an E-News Release in which he referred to the Supreme Court’s decision as a travesty and stated that the decision was “reversing nearly 45 years of precedent that advances equity throughout our country’s higher education institutions”.
Pritzker noted that the decision only “sets us back”.
Affirmative action was introduced on March 6, 1961 in Executive Order 10925, issued by President John F. Kennedy. The order wrote that “government contractors ‘take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin’” as noted by the University of California, Irvine.
In regards to college admissions, affirmative action legislation held that race would be considered as a factor in the application process as mentioned in an article released by NPR.
As a result of this ruling, dire forecasts have pointed to “swift and substantial drops in Black and Latino enrollment, perhaps by as much as half, at some of the nation’s most prestigious colleges” as noted by an article from the Washington Post.