supreme court ruling on affirmative action

On the 29th of June 2023, the Supreme Court made a very decision that many believe is very damaging to the future of equality in our nation: The Court struck down race-conscious admissions, calling it unconstitutional. Affirmative action has existed for approximately 45 years worked toward leveling the playing field of college-educated individuals in this country. Before affirmative action, institutions of higher learning were largely populated by one group: those who were White, Christian (ie adherents of Christianity), wealthy, and male (born male).

 This decision will continue to widen the gap between rich and poor, between Black and White in this country.  Affirmative action was originally instituted to help Black Americans and Native Americans to have more of an opportunity (or ANY opportunity, really - before that it was extremely rare for a non-White to go to college) within the realms of higher education.  As immigration has brought in more and more minority populations to the United States, this program has extended to broader groups and ethnicities, like Latinx immigrant groups, Asians and Southeast Asians.  For the vast majority of Americans of college-educated status, the diversity introduced by attempting to level the playing field for non-Whites has been a net positive for higher education, and for American society more broadly.

However, the reactionary backlash to affirmative action became more ferocious in the past decade, and lawsuits like Fisher v. University of Texas in October 2012 began to make inroads toward destroying the diversity/equity good-will established by affirmative action policies. The most recent Supreme Court ruling involved relevant lawsuits against the University of North Carolina and Harvard.

The Supreme Court, which holds a conservative majority, was led by Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and included two Black justices, including Justice Ketanji Brown and Justice Clarence Thomas (who currently faces scrutiny for his financial misconduct, and previously faced scrutiny for sexual harassment of Anita Hill).   The Supreme Court currently has one Latinx Justice (the first-ever Latinx Justice to serve on the Supreme Court), Sonia Sotomayor.  Of the four women currently on the Supreme Court, Justice Ketanji Brown, Justice Elena Kagan, and Justice Sotomayor, voted to uphold affirmative action.

Justice Sotomayor’s statement:

“Today, this court stands in the way and rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress,” she wrote, adding that it “cements a superficial rule of colorblindness as a constitutional principle in an endemically segregated society where race has always mattered and continues to matter” and “subverts the constitutional guarantee of equal protection by further entrenching racial inequality in education, the very foundation of our democratic government and pluralistic society.”

Although many have decried the use of race/ethnicity and other factors in college admissions decisions, few of the anti-affirmative action hawks consider the cultural and socio-economic barriers that still exist in this country toward the vast majority of those from under-represented minorities.

And while Justice Roberts (and the rest of his conservative tribe) claim that they wish for college admissions to be more equitable, they are overlooking so much of the systemic bias that still exists for those from underprivileged and underrepresented minorities.

President Biden vowed to fight this ruling, but as we know it’s the Supreme Court that sets so much of our national policy.  This story will continue to develop in current months and years.