The U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling that left liberals and progressives fuming when it determined that affirmative action practices should not be used in college admissions. By a 6-3 ruling, it is no longer legal to use race-based practices in public and private university admissions processes.
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion and explained that a student “must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual — not on the basis of race.”
Roberts’s main legal argument was that both Harvard University and the University of North Carolina violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Meaning, these universities racially discriminated against applicants to their institutions.
The dissenting justices were Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown-Jackson. Sotomayor, who once called herself “the perfect affirmative action baby,” claimed that the ruling “cement[ed] a superficial rule of colorblindness as a constitutional principle in an endemically segregated society.”
The plaintiffs, the Students for Fair Admissions, brought the lawsuits against Ivy League institution Harvard University and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. A statement issued by the plaintiffs said, “Ending racial preferences in college admissions is an outcome that the vast majority of all races and ethnicities will celebrate. A university doesn’t have real diversity when it simply assembles students who look different but come from similar backgrounds and act, talk, and think alike.”
The organization also warned college administrators that any attempt to skirt or circumvent the ruling will not be tolerated. “You have a legal obligation to follow the letter and the spirit of the law,” the statement read.
It is important to note that the organization represents Asian-American students who believed that they were not accepted into Harvard due to their race, contrary to the claims on the Left that the organization is serving at the behest of white Americans.
Teachers’ unions were livid about the decision. In an online Twitter Spaces, which is the social media platform where people participate in an audio-only discussion, American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten falsely claimed that the affirmative action ruling will reverse decades of societal progress on race relations. She said it was a “horrible” decision and the ruling was a reminder that the current Court should be forced to change its members to get more favorable rulings.
National Education Association (NEA) President Becky Pringle agreed with Weingarten’s opinion. On Twitter, a social media platform, Pringle said, “This decision by an out-of-touch Supreme Court slams the door on higher education opportunities for students who have been historically denied the chance they deserve.”
The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) shared similarly-critical words about the ruling and said, “In the face of this attack on racial justice, it falls to the higher ed community to protect what we value—access to higher education for all types of students, equity in education, and vibrant campuses characterized by freedom to learn, teach, and conduct research.”
AAUP also tweeted the thoughts of prominent Critical Race Theory theorist Ibram X. Kendi, who said on Twitter, “In banning affirmative action, the Supreme Court has *not* banned using race in college admissions. “Race neutral” is a legal fantasy, the latest to conserve racism. As Uma Jayakumar and I write @TheAtlantic, ‘race neutral’ is the new ‘separate but equal.’”
Affirmative action is now gone, and it appears that the Court may continue to strike down unconstitutional laws and practices that conservatives have had issues with for decades.
