An aerial shot of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (Getty Images).

By Ariana Figueroa and Ashley Murray

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that two prominent universities’ consideration of race in acceptances violated the U.S. Constitution, effectively reshaping the role of affirmative action in the college admissions process throughout higher education.

In a 6-3 decision, Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, wrote that the admissions processes at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

“Because Harvard’s and UNC’s admissions programs lack sufficiently focused and measurable objectives warranting the use of race, unavoidably employ race in a negative manner, involve racial stereotyping, and lack meaningful end points, those admissions programs cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause,” Roberts wrote.

“Many universities have for too long wrongly concluded that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned, but the color of their skin. This Nation’s constitutional history does not tolerate that choice,” Roberts continued.

Official portrait of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts.

Because Harvard is a private institution and UNC is a public institution, this decision affects higher education across the board.

The three liberal Justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.

Sotomayor wrote the dissenting opinion, and argued that while the equal protection clause “enshrines a guarantee of racial equality,” the Supreme Court “long ago concluded that this guarantee can be enforced through race-conscious means in a society that is not, and has never been, colorblind.”

Sotomayor argued that Harvard and UNC ​​both “have sordid legacies of racial exclusion.” UNC’s founders included slaveholders and members of the white supremacist group the Ku Klux Klan and the university resisted integration until it finally admitted the first Black student in 1963, she wrote.

“To this day, UNC’s deep-seated legacy of racial subjugation continues to manifest itself in student life,” she wrote, noting that many buildings still bear the names of members of the Ku Klux Klan.

Sotomayor noted that slavery and racial subordination were integral to Harvard’s founding.

Jackson joined that dissenting opinion but recused herself from the Harvard portion of the decision.

The decision stems from a 2014 lawsuit against Harvard College and a separate lawsuit against the University of North Carolina. The two suits sought to overturn Grutter v. Bollinger, which is currently how universities use race-conscious admissions.

Official portrait of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor

Both suits were filed by a group called Students for Fair Admissions, which is funded by Edward Blum, a conservative legal activist who has launched multiple lawsuits over what he sees as racial preferences in school admissions.

For the Harvard case, the group alleges that Harvard violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act because Asian American applicants are less likely to be admitted compared to similarly qualified Black, Latino or Indigenous applicants. Title VI bars institutions that receive federal funding from discrimination on the basis of race.

The UNC case argues that because the university takes into consideration race in its admissions process, it violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.

Federal courts rejected Students for Fair Admissions’ arguments and sided with the universities.

‘My Heart Breaks’

Less than an hour after the decision, former President Barack Obama, the nation’s first Black leader to hold the office, and former first lady Michelle Obama released statements that included links to scholarship funds and organizations focused on college access for minority students.

“So often, we just accept that money, power, and privilege are perfectly justifiable forms of affirmative action, while kids growing up like I did are expected to compete when the ground is anything but level,” Michelle Obama said.

“So today, my heart breaks for any young person out there who’s wondering what their future holds — and what kinds of chances will be open to them. And while I know the strength and grit that lies inside kids who have always had to sweat a little more to climb the same ladders, I hope and I pray that the rest of us are willing to sweat a little, too,” she continued.

Former President Obama said affirmative action “wasn’t perfect.”

“But it allowed generations of students like Michelle and me to prove we belonged. Now it’s up to all of us to give young people the opportunities they deserve  —  and help students everywhere benefit from new perspectives,” he said.

Former South Carolina governor and 2024 GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley hailed the decision.

Oral Arguments

During oral arguments last year, members of the court’s conservative wing, who now make up a 6-3 majority, questioned if it is legal for universities to consider race and for how long such policies should endure, pointing to a 2003 case that predicted that affirmative action would no longer be needed in 25 years.

Justice Clarence Thomas, a conservative and the only Black man on the Supreme Court, pressed lawyers defending the schools’ policies on how diversity benefited education.

“I didn’t go to racially diverse schools but there were educational benefits. And I’d like you to tell me expressly when a parent sends a kid to college that they don’t necessarily send them there to have fun or feel good or anything like that. They send them there to learn physics or chemistry or whatever they’re studying,” Thomas said to Ryan Park, the attorney representing UNC. “So tell me what the educational benefits are to that?”

This article came from Indiana Capital Chronicle.