Supreme Court’s Affirmative Action Ruling May Be Bigger Than You Think

One of the more interesting, but less reported, aspects of the Supreme Court’s decision in the landmark affirmative action case Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard was its criticism of universities’ racial categories in admissions policies. That critique opens a new way to challenge racial discrimination in court. Lawyers and litigants who care about racial equality should take full advantage of it. The high court’s perspective on racial categories arose out of what is known among lawyers as “the diversity rationale,” which comes from a 1978 opinion by Justice Lewis…

Read More...

Justice Jackson’s Crucial Argument About Affirmative Action

Yesterday, an hour and a half into the marathon hearings about whether colleges can use race as a factor in admissions decisions, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson began to rub her temples as she looked down at her notes. “We’re entertaining a rule where some people can say what they want about who they are and have that valued in a system,” she said. “And I’m worried that that creates an inequity in the system with respect to being able to express our identity.” Black and Latino applicants would be limited…

Read More...