Supreme Court Ends Affirmative Action in College Admissions in Students for Fair Admissions Decisions

Supreme Court ruled 6-3 (Harvard) and 6-2 (UNC) that race-conscious admissions policies at Harvard and University of North Carolina violate the Equal Protection Clause, effectively ending affirmative action in higher education nationwide. Chief Justice Roberts authored the majority opinion, joined by Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. Roberts wrote that the Fourteenth Amendment applies “without regard to any difference of race, of color, or of nationality,” declaring “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.” The majority held the policies violated federal anti-discrimination law because they lacked focused objectives, used race negatively, involved stereotyping, and lacked meaningful endpoints. The cases were brought by Students for Fair Admissions, an organization founded by Edward Blum, a conservative legal strategist with a decades-long record of challenging civil rights protections. Blum previously orchestrated Shelby County v. Holder (2013), which gutted the Voting Rights Act. Justice Sotomayor’s dissent, joined by Kagan and Jackson in the UNC case, condemned the ruling for rolling back “decades of precedent and momentous progress,” implementing “colorblindness as a constitutional principle in an endemically segregated society.” The decision ignored persistent racial inequalities in American education and society. Roberts’s opinion carved out an exception allowing universities to consider applicants’ discussions of how race affected their lives, creating ambiguity about permissible consideration of race. A footnote acknowledged military academies may have distinct interests, exempting them from the ruling following arguments by the Solicitor General about national security. Justice Thomas’s concurrence rejected any consideration of race, while Justice Gorsuch and Kavanaugh filed separate concurrences. The decision continues the Roberts Court’s systematic dismantling of civil rights protections, following its gutting of the Voting Rights Act and expansion of religious exemptions from anti-discrimination laws. Combined with decisions enabling unlimited money in politics and voter suppression, the ruling advances a plutocratic, white supremacist vision of American society by blocking pathways to opportunity for historically marginalized communities.