Affirmative action as we know it is gone. In a 6-3 ruling today in the case of Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and a companion lawsuit against the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court discarded decades of legal precedent by ruling that colleges may no longer consider race when admitting students.
The Court was unmoved by the near-unanimous belief among people who run colleges that student diversity is essential for education, or by the many barriers that continue to stand between students of color and college degrees. Because nearly all private colleges, including Harvard, receive federal funding, they are now subject to the court’s brand-new interpretation of the 14th Amendment’s ban on racial discrimination.
That creates an enormous challenge for college leaders and admissions staff. The higher education institutions affected by this ruling will almost certainly not relent on their stated commitment to recruiting a diverse student body. But they’ll need to find new ways of making good on that commitment with methods that (they hope) won’t run afoul of the Supreme Court.
History suggests it will be difficult to fully replace the strategies that the Court just declared illegal, particularly at first. That’s especially true given that many forms of affirmative action for the white and wealthy still stand: The Ivy League crew team recruit with mediocre grades won’t be touched by this decision.
A diverse higher ed landscape is still possible after SFFA v. Harvard, but will colleges, especially of the elite variety, be willing to upend the old ways of doing things and commit to new investments to achieve it?
Who will be affected?
SFFA v. Harvard goes into effect in a few months, when early-decision applications start arriving for the entering Class of 2028. Colleges have already admitted most of the students who will matriculate this fall. The ruling doesn’t affect them or those…
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