Supreme Court strikes down affirmattive action
WASHINGTON – In a pair of joint decisions Thursday, the Supreme Court struck down a key tenant of university admissions for over 30 years, the ability for colleges and universities to consider race as a factor in admissions.
The move is expected to have institutions of higher learning scrapping current methods, known as holistic admissions, and removing affirmative action policies in their criteria.
Constitutional Law Professor at DSU Dr. Sam Hoff tells 47ABC the two rulings act as a rollback of the previous 2003 decision that found having a diverse student body on campuses across the US as being in the overwhelming public interest.
The decision, authored by Chief Justice Robeters, instead contended the current system represented a violation of the Equal Rights Clause, despite that very cause being used to defend the practice in a similar case before the court 20 years earlier.
“What the majority is doing in each of these decisions that goes against affirmative action is they’re essentially admitting some history, but saying there is no proven result of these policies. and I think that it’s not easy to rebut, but it can be rebutted by good information and studies that a lot of schools that support affirmative action already have in place,” Hoff said.
Hoff tells us while the court did not reject that Diversity Equity and Inclusion programming is in the public interest, the decision did not affirm it, which could create issues for diversity initiatives in the military, police, and corporate environments.
“The majority argued in the case that the policy was not narrowly tailored enough, that it didn’t have strict scrutiny, that it did not have a compelling government interest, and that there was no end date, whatever that means, for the fact that at some point there would be equality in admissions,” Hoff said.
The court did leave open the ability for applicants to talk about race in their admissions essays, and Hoff believes universities may be able to get around the decision by placing greater weight in the admissions process on those essays.
