The U.S Supreme Court Rules Against Affirmative Action

The United States Supreme Court has ruled that affirmative action is in violation of the 14th amendment and therefore unconstitutional

Credit: AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana

Affirmative Action

The United States Supreme Court has been deliberating affirmative action since Monday. Today they decided that affirmative action is unconstitutional. This means that college admissions teams are no longer required to consider race when reviewing applicants. This is the end of an executive order lasting almost 17 decades. Affirmative action was designed to allow “students from historically marginalized groups to be represented more in higher education”.

In the case reviewed, seven U.S Supreme Court Justices voted against affirmative action: John G. Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito, Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. Three justices voted to protect it: Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

This was struck down because those who voted against it believe that “affirmative action violates the 14th amendment’s equal protection clause.” An excerpt from the majority opinion, written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, says the admissions programs discussed “cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause. Both programs lack sufficiently focused and measurable objectives warranting the use of race, unavoidably employ race in a negative manner, involve racial stereotyping and lack meaningful end points. We have never permitted admissions programs to work in that way, and we will not do so today.”

Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who voted to protect affirmative action, responded to the ruling saying: this decision “rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress” and “subverts the constitutional guarantee of equal protection by further entrenching racial inequality in education”.

Published by HOLR Magazine