High Court bans racial preferences in college admissions.

In a 6-3 opinion, the Supreme Court has made a landmark decision, striking down race-based affirmative action at universities. This ruling brings an end to a controversial practice that has been in place for decades and could have significant implications for college admissions nationwide.

The court ruled that the admissions programs at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, which were parties in the cases, “cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause.” The programs were found to lack focused and measurable objectives, employ race in a negative manner, involve racial stereotyping, and lack meaningful end points.

This decision is a significant victory for opponents of affirmative action, including Students for Fair Admissions, the advocacy group that brought the cases against Harvard and UNC. It will also require many universities that use race as an admissions criteria to develop new recruitment strategies.

Students for Fair Admissions argued that Harvard violated the Civil Rights Act by imposing higher admissions standards on Asian applicants compared to other racial and ethnic groups. They also claimed that the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s race-based admissions policies were inconsistent with the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment.

This ruling overturns the 45-year-old Supreme Court decision in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, which allowed colleges to consider race as one of multiple factors for admission.

Supporters of affirmative action, including the Biden administration, had urged the Supreme Court not to take this case, arguing that overturning the decision would be a significant setback for campus diversity.

The Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law, in a pro-Harvard amicus brief, emphasized that the university does not view race as the defining feature of an application. They stated that race-conscious admissions are necessary to ensure representation of students from all races on campuses. The group also claimed that banning this practice would cause the percentage of black students admitted to drop from 14 percent to 6 percent.

This ruling is likely to compel many schools across the country to overhaul their recruitment and application processes. In California, where affirmative action has been banned since 1995, the percentage of black and Latino students at the University of California at Los Angeles dropped by around 50 percent immediately after the prohibition. However, the university has since managed to recruit an even higher percentage of black and Latino students without using race as an admissions factor.

The last time the court revisited the Bakke decision on affirmative action was in the 2003 case Grutter v. Bollinger. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who wrote the majority opinion upholding Bakke at that time, believed that affirmative action should be a temporary measure. She stated, “expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today.”