WASHINGTON – The US Supreme Court on Thursday banned using race and ethnicity in college admissions, dealing a serious blow to a decades-old observe that boosted academic alternatives for African-Americans and different minorities.
“The student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual — not on the basis of race,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote within the majority opinion.
The justices broke six to a few alongside conservative-liberal strains within the choice, which got here after years of conservative antipathy to “affirmative action” insurance policies which have sought range at school admissions and business and authorities hiring.
The court docket mentioned that universities have been free to think about a person applicant’s private expertise — whether or not, for instance, they grew up experiencing racism — in weighing their utility over candidates extra academically certified.
But deciding based on whether or not the applicant is white, Black or different is itself racial discrimination, Roberts wrote.
“Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice,” he mentioned.
The court docket sided with an activist group, Students for Fair Admissions, that sued the oldest personal and public establishments of upper training within the nation — elite Harvard University and the University of North Carolina (UNC) — over their admissions insurance policies.
The group claimed that race-conscious admissions insurance policies discriminated in opposition to equally or better-qualified Asian Americans competing to enter the 2 universities.
Harvard and UNC, like a variety of different aggressive US faculties, take into account an applicant’s race or ethnicity as an element to make sure a various scholar physique and illustration of minorities.
Such affirmative motion insurance policies arose from the Civil Rights Movement within the Nineteen Sixties aiming to assist deal with the legacy of discrimination in greater training in opposition to African Americans.
Thursday’s ruling was a victory for conservatives, some who’ve argued that affirmative motion is basically unfair.
Others have mentioned the coverage has outlived its want as a result of academic alternatives have vastly improved for Blacks and different minorities.
But the ruling was a serious setback to progressives, one yr after the court docket overturned the landmark 1973 “Roe v. Wade” choice guaranteeing a girl’s proper to abortion.
The finish to federally assured abortion rights nearly instantly led to half of the 50 states banning or severely curbing the observe.
The affirmative motion ruling may have the identical impact of many states and establishments halting packages designed to offer deprived minorities further consideration within the aggressive faculty admissions course of.
Leading the dissenters, Justice Sonia Sotomayor mentioned the choice “rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress.”
“In so holding, the Court cements a superficial rule of colorblindness as a constitutional principle in an endemically segregated society,” she wrote. — Agence France-Presse
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
