Justices heard arguments on Monday in challenges to policies at the University of North Carolina and Harvard that consider race among many factors in evaluating applications for admission.
PUBLISHED 9:22 AM EDT Oct. 31, 2022The future of affirmative action in higher education is on the table as the Supreme Court wades into the admissions programs at the nation's oldest public and private universities.
The Supreme Court has twice upheld race-conscious college admissions programs in the past 19 years, including just six years ago. But that was before three appointees of President Donald Trump joined, as well as Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the court's first Black woman. Colleges and universities can use other, race-neutral ways to assemble a diverse student body, including by focusing on socioeconomic status and eliminating the preference for children of alumni, Students for Fair Admissions argues.
"No one is automatically getting in because race is being used," Justice Jackson said. "Why does having race as a factor harm your members?" “As I understand your 'no race-conscious admissions rule,' these two applicants would have a dramatically different opportunity to tell their family stories and to have them count,” she said. “The first applicant would be able to have his family background considered and valued by the institution as part of its consideration of whether or not to admit him, while the second one wouldn’t be able to because his story is in many ways bound up with his race and with the race of his ancestors.
"What is your goal and how would a court be able to determine when your goal has been reached?" asked Justice Samuel Alito. Justice Clarence Thomas pushed Park for a definition of diversity: "I've heard the word diversity quite a few times, and I don't have a clue what it means. It seems to mean everything for everyone."
"We have to think forward about what happens if you prevail in this case," Roberts directed at Strawbridge. Roberts later posed a hypothetical about students who are children immigrants to this country. "At present it's not possible to achieve that without race-conscious admissions, including at the nation's service academies," Prelogar said.Harvard University case
But he also argued that simply identifying one's race via "checkbox" weighs much more heavily: "Harvard can award a racial preference based on the checkbox alone, whether or not an applicant writes about it or otherwise indicates that it's important to them." Waxman did not appear to have a good explanation except that the personal rating, which is meant to represent qualities such as kindness, empathy and integrity, is factored through what guidance counselors, teachers and interviewers write about a student. Therefore, he said, it is hard to measure definitively.
Harvard does not want a "class that is racially diverse only for people for whom their racial identity and their racial experiences is of such compelling importance that they write about it."
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