Docket 20-1199
Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College
DecidedJun 29, 2023
6-3decision
Source: CourtListener.
Supreme Court bars race-conscious admissions at Harvard and UNC
Impact9/10
What it does
The ruling holds that using race as a factor in college admissions, even in a limited "plus factor" holistic way, violates the Equal Protection Clause. It overturns the framework from Grutter v. Bollinger that allowed universities to consider race to achieve educational diversity benefits, while still permitting applicants to discuss how race has affected their individual lives if tied to personal qualities.
Who benefits
Applicants to selective colleges who are not members of groups previously favored by race-conscious admissions, including many Asian American and white applicants who the lower courts found received fewer "tips" under the prior system.
Who is affected
Colleges and universities nationwide that used race-conscious holistic admissions, and prospective Black, Hispanic, and other underrepresented minority applicants who may see reduced representation at selective institutions absent race-conscious admissions.
Practical impact
Colleges and universities receiving federal funds may no longer use an applicant's race as a factor, even a limited plus factor, in admissions decisions, forcing widespread revision of admissions policies nationwide. Institutions may still consider how race has concretely shaped an individual applicant's character, skills, or challenges overcome, but may not use race itself as the basis for preferential treatment, and studies cited by the dissent suggest this will likely reduce enrollment of underrepresented minority students at selective institutions.
Majority reasoning
The majority held that Harvard's and UNC's programs failed strict scrutiny because their stated diversity interests—training leaders, promoting a robust exchange of ideas—are not measurable or subject to meaningful judicial review, and the racial categories used are overbroad, arbitrary, or underinclusive. The Court found that both schools' programs used race as a negative factor against some applicants (because admissions is zero-sum) and relied on racial stereotyping by assuming students of a given race think alike or contribute similarly. It also concluded the programs lacked a logical end point, rejecting the schools' arguments that periodic review or the passage of time toward Grutter's 25-year expectation satisfied that requirement. Responding to the dissents' reliance on Bakke's remedial rationale, the majority noted that no precedent has permitted a remedial justification for race-based college admissions and that neither university defended its program on that basis. The Court preserved narrow room for applicants to discuss how race personally affected their lives if tied to individual character or ability, but held that this could not be used to recreate the system just struck down.
Dissent reasoning
Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justice Kagan (and by Justice Jackson as to the UNC case), argued that the Equal Protection Clause has always permitted race-conscious measures to achieve racial equality, citing Reconstruction-era race-conscious laws passed alongside the Fourteenth Amendment and this Court's precedents from Bakke through Fisher upholding limited use of race in admissions. She contended that entrenched racial inequality in wealth, health, and education persists today, that Harvard and UNC have their own histories of racial exclusion, and that the majority's rule of "colorblindness" ignores this reality and will cause a sharp decline in minority enrollment, as happened in states that banned affirmative action. She argued the majority overruled Grutter and Fisher without justification under stare decisis and imposed an unworkable measurability requirement designed to make race-conscious plans fail regardless of how carefully tailored. Justice Jackson, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Kagan, wrote separately regarding the UNC case to explain that centuries of law-enforced discrimination created lasting gaps in wealth, health, and opportunity between Black and white Americans, illustrated through a hypothetical comparison of a white legacy applicant and a Black first-generation applicant. She argued UNC's holistic process merely allows admissions officers to consider race as one part of an applicant's full life story, not as an automatic advantage, and that ignoring this history entrenches inequality rather than ending it, contending the majority's colorblindness mandate will forestall rather than hasten the day race no longer matters.
Constitutional question
Whether Harvard College's and the University of North Carolina's admissions programs, which consider an applicant's race as one factor among many, violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (and, for Harvard, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act).
Precedent changed
Effectively overrules Grutter v. Bollinger's holding that student body diversity is a compelling interest justifying limited race-conscious admissions, and narrows or extends Regents of the University of California v. Bakke and Fisher v. University of Texas by declaring university race-conscious programs can no longer satisfy strict scrutiny.