Race-Based Affirmative Action In College Admissions Unconstitutional : US Supreme Court

Holding that race cannot be considered while granting college admissions to students, the Supreme Court of the United States of America declared as unconstitutional the race-conscious admission policies at the Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, which were being followed as an affirmative action to ensure representation for marginalised and under-represented groups.The decision was 6:3 against University of North Carolina and 6:2 against Harvard University, with the liberal judges penning a forceful dissent. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson recused from hearing the case related to Harvard University.The ruling came in an appeal filed by a group named 'Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA)', who argued that race-based admission program violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. Agreeing with the SFAA, the majority held that the impugned admission policies amounted to race-based discrimination."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", the majority held. At the same time, it clarified that "nothing prohibits universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected the applicant’s life, so long as that discussion is concretely tied to a quality of character or unique ability that the particular applicant can contribute to the university"."At the same time, as all parties agree, nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise. But, despite the dissent’s assertion to the contrary, universities may not simply establish through application essays or other means the regime we hold unlawful today", the majority judgment stated. It held that the Universities have not demonstrated how the race-based admissions programs advance a compelling and legitimate state interest."To achieve the educational benefits of diversity, respondents measure the racial composition of their classes using racial categories that are plainly overbroad (expressing, for example, no concern whether South Asian or East Asian students are adequately represented as “Asian”); arbitrary or undefined (the use of the category “Hispanic”); or underinclusive (no category at all for Middle Eastern students). The unclear connection between the goals that respondents seek and the means they employ preclude courts from meaningfully scrutinizing respondents’ admissions programs", the majority held.Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the lead judgment for the majority, stated : "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". Justice Clarence Thomas, the nation's second black justice agreed and wrote that such programmes were "patently unconstitutional". "Universities' self-proclaimed righteousness does not afford them license to discriminate on the basis of race," he said.The majority judgments extensively quoted from Brown vs Board of Education, which held as unconstitutional the 'separate but equal regime' in admissions.Ignoring race will not equalize a society that is racially unequal : DissentJustice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a powerful dissent, stating that the majority's opinion is "not grounded in law or fact and contravenes the vision of equality emobidied in the Fourteenth Amendment". She opined that the majority holding "cements a superficial rule of colorblindness as a constitutional principle in an endemically segregated society where race has always mattered and continues to matter".She stated that the majority view ignored the settled law that Equal Protection Clause allows the limited use of race in college admissions in service of the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body."Entrenched racial inequality remains a reality today. That is true for society writ large and, more specifically, for Harvard and the University of North Carolina (UNC), two institutions with a long history of racial exclusion. Ignoring race will not equalize a society that is racially unequal. What was true in the 1860s, and again in 1954, is true today: Equality requires acknowledgment of inequality", she wrote.Disagreeing with the view that race-based admissions perpetuate racial stereotypes, she wrote :"It is not a stereotype to acknowledge the basic truth that young people's experiences are shaded by a societal structure where race matters. Acknowledging that there is something special about a student of color who...

Race-Based Affirmative Action In College Admissions Unconstitutional : US Supreme Court

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