Supreme Court’s Affirmative Action Ruling Sparks Surprising Impact.

Columbia Law Journals Delay Admissions Decisions in Wake of Landmark Supreme Court Ruling

Law journals at Columbia University Law School are postponing their masthead decisions following the recent Supreme Court ruling that banned race-based college admissions. This delay highlights the far-reaching implications of the verdict beyond undergraduate programs.

The office of student services at the law school, responsible for coordinating journal applications including the prestigious Columbia Law Review, announced on Sunday that acceptances would be delayed until they could ensure compliance with the new race-blind standard set forth in the case of Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.

“In light of the Supreme Court decision on Thursday, we are working with university leadership to better understand any implications for the journal ranking process,” stated the office in an email to students. “Because of this, journal acceptances will be delayed until we receive further clarity.”

“We have an obligation,” the office added, “to … ensure that our decision processes are consistent with the law.”

Law journals have long utilized affirmative action to select student editors and articles for publication. The delay suggests that this widespread practice may be in jeopardy due to the Supreme Court’s sweeping ruling, which experts believe could invalidate various race-based policies in academia and corporate America.

“It’s almost impossible to avoid the implication that all recipients of federal funds are now subject to the same rule announced in Students for Fair Admissions,” said Dan Morenoff, executive director of the American Civil Rights Project, which supported the group that sued Harvard. As long as a law review is affiliated with a federally funded university, it must adhere to “the same constraints that the 14th Amendment applies to state entities.”

This potential legal challenge could spell trouble for Columbia’s journals. Although the Columbia Law Review is technically an independent nonprofit, students apply to it through the university’s online portal, and inquiries about the review are directed to the law school’s associate director of academic advising, Jordan Carr. Other journals at the law school are published “in partnership” with the university, according to their websites.

Neither Columbia Law School nor the Columbia Law Review responded to requests for comment.

The Supreme Court’s decision is already impacting legal academia. Within 24 hours of the ruling, the conservative public interest firm America First Legal sent letters to 200 law schools demanding the elimination of racial preferences not only in student admissions but also in faculty hiring and law reviews.

“We will represent victims of these policies and sue any law school that allows these illegal and discriminatory practices to continue,” the letters read.

The delay at Columbia suggests that the school’s journals have similar programs, as indicated by the demographic data collected by the Columbia Law Review. Applicants are asked about their race, gender, and sexual orientation, and can provide “other relevant information” about their “personal identity,” according to segments of the application form reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.

Even prior to the Supreme Court’s ruling, law reviews faced legal challenges regarding their use of racial preferences. In 2018, a Texas-based group sued the Harvard Law Review and the New York University Law Review for alleged discrimination in the admissions process. Although both lawsuits were eventually dismissed, law reviews may struggle to defend against similar complaints in the future, according to Morenoff.

The Supreme Court’s new standard could particularly impact the Yale Law Journal, which released admissions data in 2021 following accusations of racism from minority students. The data revealed that the top-ranked law review accepted white and Asian applicants at significantly lower rates than their black counterparts, mirroring the disparities cited by the Supreme Court in its judgment against Harvard.

“It certainly sounds like the whole set of elite law journals will need to change their MO or face consequences,” said Morenoff.