Supreme Court to decide whether race should be considered in college applications

The Supreme Court will make a decision whether colleges can use racial preferences when deciding which students to enroll for both public and private schools.

One case involves the University of North Carolina (UNC). That school considers race a factor in admissions, they provide a boost to Black, Hispanic, and Native American applicants. UNC reportedly denies any additional benefit to racial minorities like Asians, which are a much smaller percentage of the population than the two favored minorities.

The other case was at Harvard. Harvard has acknowledged that they consider race as one of several factors in its admissions process, which is consistent with current legal standard.

The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution forbids state and local governments from discriminating on the basis of race, however in the 1978 Bakke case, the Supreme Court held that schools did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment by using racial preferences, euphemistically called “affirmative action” unless it was so blatant that it amounted to quotas, such as a openly stating that a certain percentage of student spots would be given exclusively to a particular racial group.

The anti-affirmative action group Students for Fair Admissions, which is led by conservative legal strategist Edward Blum, has filed the lawsuits, and has said that Harvard discriminates against Asian American students during the admissions process to allow them to increase Black and Hispanic enrollment. They also filed a companion case against UNC in November.

“It is our hope that the justices will end the use of race as an admissions factor at Harvard, UNC and all colleges and universities,” Blum said. “The cornerstone of our nation’s civil rights laws is the principle that an individual’s race should not be used to help or harm them in their life’s endeavors.”

In 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit in Boston ruled that Harvard was properly using race as one of several factors in the admissions process. A federal district court ruled in favor of UNC in the separate case in October.

The Student for Fair Admissions filed an appeal with both the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond, Virginia, and the Supreme Court.