The University of North Carolina was once a bastion of segregation.
Joy Jiang, a 19-year-old sophomore from Harrisburg, North Carolina, and co-director of the affirmative action group, said recent racial tensions on campus that she described as a backlash after the statue came down, have scared away some students of color from vocalizing their support for affirmative action.
The group told the justices that Brown rejected many of the arguments UNC is making. “It argues that racial classifications make everyone better off. It warns that universities cannot discard race quite yet. And it contends that the legality of its practices should be decided by North Carolinians, not this Court. The segregationists agreed,” according to the group's final Supreme Court brief.
“The implications extend well beyond UNC and Harvard. It may very well result in a different outcome than what we have seen in the, the Grutter case in 2003, the Fisher cases,” Granberry Russell said, citing the court’s earlier college admissions cases. Jackson is sitting out the Harvard case because she was on an advisory board until recently. But she is taking part in the North Carolina case, which strongly suggests the court would use that case if it ends up making a major pronouncement on affirmative action.
Only Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s undergraduate alma mater, Rhodes College, in Memphis, Tennessee, is not involved in the cases.