Affirmative Action Loses in Court

THE END OF affirmative action in university admissions has been prophesied since 2003, when the Supreme Court issued its decision in Grutter v. Bollinger. In the majority opinion, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote that “25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today

- Robby Soave

” That reckoning has now arrived, and five years earlier than predicted: In June, the Supreme Court ruled 6–3 that public universities must stop favoring certain applicants, and disfavoring others, based on their race or ethnicity.

“Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it,” Chief Justice John Roberts declared, writing for the majority in Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College. “In other words, the student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race.”

For everyone who values fairness, individuality, and nondiscrimination, this decision could not have come soon enough. The perniciousness of the admissions system was on full display, thanks to the details of the case. The plaintiff—an advocacy organization that filed suits against Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC)— persuasively demonstrated that race-based admissions schemes systematically disadvantaged Asian-American students. UNC, for instance, admitted more than 80 percent of its black applicants but less than 70 percent of its white and Asian applicants. (Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes this magazine, submitted an amicus brief in support of the plaintiff.)