In a pair of votes, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down race consciousness in college admissions on Thursday, upending four decades of precedent and reshaping the landscape of higher education.
The court split down partisan lines in the decision, with the conservative-leaning majority outvoting the liberal-leaning minority 6-3 against the race conscious practices of the University of North Carolina (UNC) and 6-2 against the practices of Harvard University. (Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who served on Harvard’s Board of Overseers, recused herself from that case.)
“[Universities] have concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned, but the color of their skin,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts for the majority. “Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice,”
