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SCOTUS Ruling

BREAKING: SCOTUS Rules Affirmative Action Unconstitutional for College Admissions

posted by Hannity Staff - 6.29.23

The Supreme Court handed down a monumental ruling on Thursday, outlawing affirmative action for colleges and universities for admission purposes.

From Fox News:

Many universities have argued that race-based admissions ensures that student bodies remain diverse, while critics such as the plaintiffs in the cases argue the policy discriminates against many qualified students based on race.

Students for Fair Admissions, a student activist group, brought cases against both Harvard and University of North Carolina. The group initially sued Harvard College in 2014 for violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which “prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin in any program or activity that receives Federal funds or other Federal financial assistance.”

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The affirmative action cases gave rise to one of the most spirited court debates to occur within the Supreme Court building this past term, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito grilling Harvard’s lawyer, Seth Waxman.

Alito pressed Waxman on why it is that Asian American students regularly receive lower personal scores on their applications than other races. Waxman talked around the justice’s questions, causing Alito to get frustrated with the lawyer.

“I still haven’t heard any explanation for the disparity between the personal scores that are given to Asians,” Alito said.

Waxman then got into a tense back-and-forth with Roberts. The justice asked why Waxman was downplaying race as a factor in admissions decisions, when according to Roberts it must have some impact, or else it would not be included.

Waxman admitted race was decisive “for some highly qualified applicants,” just like “being … an oboe player in a year in which the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra needs an oboe player.”

“We did not fight a civil war about oboe players,” Roberts shot back. “We did fight a civil war to eliminate racial discrimination.”

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the 6-3 opinion. The decision overturns the Supreme Court’s 2003 ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger,

“Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. “And the Equal Protection Clause, we have accordingly held, applies ‘without regard to any differences of race, of color, or of nationality’—it is ‘universal in [its] application.’”

This story is breaking…