Supreme Court takes cases on future of affirmative action
ABC News
The U.S. Supreme Court is taking up major cases that could decide the future of affirmative action in college admissions.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday said it would take up a pair of cases that could decide the future of affirmative action in college admissions.
The justices will hear appeals from a conservative student group that has been challenging the use of race as a factor in undergraduate admissions at Harvard University, the nation's oldest private college, and the University of North Carolina, the nation's oldest public state university.
It will be the first test on the issue for the court's 6-3 conservative majority, following the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy and death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, both of whom defended race-conscious admissions.
The group which brought the case -- Students for Fair Admissions -- alleges that Asian American applicants have been illegally targeted by Harvard and rejected at a disproportionately higher rate in violation of Supreme Court precedent and the students' constitutional rights.
