Nithyakalyani Narayanan. V
The Supreme Court of the USA declared that the affirmative action admission policies offered by Harvard University and the University of North Carolina are unconstitutional.
The ruling created a massive blow to years-old efforts of the government to increase minority enrolments at American universities through policies that considered the race of the applicant. The declaration was 6:3 against North Carolina University and 6:2 against Harvard.
The case came into being when the Students for Fair Admissions group filed an appeal stating that the race-based admission program violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution.
Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the lead judgment for the majority, observed “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it”. He added that the said program of the two universities “unavoidably employ race in a negative manner, involve racial stereotyping, and lack meaningful end points.”
The court clarified that “nothing prohibits universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected the applicant’s life, so long as that discussion is concretely tied to a quality of character or unique ability that the particular applicant can contribute to the university.”
The majority pointed out that the racial categories measured by the respondents are plainly overbroad. Instead of considering ‘South Asian’ students and ‘East Asian’ students as separate categories, they all come under the single umbrella of ‘Asian’. Some racial categories are not defined, like ‘Hispanic’, while some categories are under-inclusive, like Middle Eastern students.
“Many universities have for too long wrongly concluded that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned, but the color of their skin. This Nation’s constitutional history does not tolerate that choice,” said the court.
However, US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris disagreed with the ruling of the majority. Eminent personalities, including former POTUS and FLOTUS Barack Obama and Michelle Obama, expressed their disagreements with the court’s decision.
Name of the Case: Students for Fair Admissions, Inc v. President and Fellows of Harvard College