Supreme Court Will Hear Challenge to Affirmative Action at Harvard and U.N.C.
The New York Times
The court’s new conservative supermajority may be skeptical of admissions programs that take account of race to foster educational diversity.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to decide whether race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina are lawful, putting the fate of affirmative action in higher education at risk.
The court has repeatedly upheld similar programs, most recently in 2016. But the court’s membership has tilted right in recent years, and its new conservative supermajority is almost certain to view the challenged programs with skepticism, imperiling more than 40 years of precedent that said race could be used as one factor among many in evaluating applicants.
“Affirmative action has repeatedly been administered last rites during the last five decades,” said Justin Driver, a law professor at Yale. “But these two cases unmistakably pose the gravest threats yet to affirmative action’s continued vitality.”
