A year after deciding to overturn the deplorable, despicable Roe v. Wade, opening up opportunities for pro-life activists across the country to launch campaigns at the state level to ban the sick and twisted practice of abortion, the Supreme Court has once again put out a ruling that is shocking people across the country.
This time, however, the issue is affirmative action admission policies at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina. The Supreme Court ruled against these policies in a decision that will ripple across universities all over the nation.
According to The Daily Wire, “The court ruled that the race-based admissions programs at Harvard violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the University of North Carolina violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.”
“The court voted six to three in the University of North Carolina case and six to two in the Harvard case. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a Harvard graduate, and former Harvard board member, recused herself from the Harvard case,” the report continued. “Justices John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett voted with the majority in both cases.”
Chief Justice John Roberts went on to say in the opinion for the majority, “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.”
“Nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise. But, despite the dissent’s assertion to the contrary, universities may not simply establish through application essays or other means the regime we hold unlawful today,” the court’s opinion explained.
Both Justice Jackson and Sonia Sotomayer wrote dissenting opinions, which is no surprise.
Justice Sotomayer launched accusations at the majority, saying they were “further entrenching racial inequality in education.”
“Today, this Court stands in the way and rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress,” Sotomayor stated in the dissent, going on to add that the court “cements a superficial rule of colorblindness as a constitutional principle in an endemically segregated society where race has always mattered and continues to matter.”
The ruling will resolve two cases that students filed against both Harvard University and the University of North Carolina. One such lawsuit was originally filed by an organization called Students for Fair Admissions which accused the schools of unfairly basing their admission decisions on race. The group then noted the high test scores of Asian-Americans and white applicants who were ultimately rejected by the institutions.
Students for Fair Admissions then made the case that Harvard violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which explicitly forbids any kind of racial discrimination by schools that receive federal funding. In the second case, the same organization accused the University of North Carolina of violating the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause by, you guessed it, including race in the school’s admission process.
“Racial classifications are wrong,” the student group’s legal representative, Patrick Strawbridge, remarked in his opening argument, which was made in October 2022.
“This court has always said that racial classifications are invidious,” Strawbridge commented.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuits requested that SCOTUS overrule a case from 2003, Grutter v. Bollinger, where the court stated that the University of Michigan Law School can consider race when deciding whether or not to admit an individual into the school.
Justice Sandra Day O’Connor went on to say at the time of the decision, “We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary.”
Justice Roberts pointed out that it has already been two decades since that decision was made.
“Twenty years have passed since Grutter, with no end to race-based college admissions in sight. But the Court has permitted race-based college admissions only within the confines of narrow restrictions: such admissions programs must comply with strict scrutiny, may never use race as a stereotype or negative, and must — at some point — end,” Roberts explained in the opinion.
At this point, the only measures that should be considered when it comes to deciding who can attend a school are their academic performance and their criminal record, should one exist. Background checks should be necessary to attend a university. You don’t want some whacked-out lunatic with a history of violent crime being allowed on your campus.
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