Affirmative Action: What Does the Supreme Court’s Ruling Mean?

The Supreme Court ruled on June 29, 2023, that colleges and universities can no longer use race as a specific basis for admission, reversing a long-standing precedent that benefited Black and Latino students in higher education.

The conservative majority’s opinion was written by Chief Justice John Roberts, who stated that the Harvard and University of North Carolina admissions programmes violated the Equal Protection Clause because they failed to provide “measurable” objectives to justify the use of race.

He claimed that the programmes involved racial stereotyping and had no clear goal. According to the opinion, the court was not expressly overturning prior cases authorising race-based affirmative action, and how race has affected an applicant’s life can still be considered.

In a fiery dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, said the decision “rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress.” For the first time since 2019, justices read their dissents from the bench, highlighting the case’s contentious nature.

According to CNN Chief Legal Analyst Laura Coates, the decision will result in significant changes to education in the United States. And, according to Steve Vladeck, a CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law, the decision will not put an end to the legal battle over college admissions.