US Supreme Court asked to ban race in Harvard admissions
- The university has been accused of discriminating against Asian-American and white applicants
- An appeal by Students for Fair Admissions could lead to the top court, which now has a 6-3 conservative majority, putting an end to affirmative action schemes
Opponents of policies used by universities to increase their numbers of black and Hispanic students asked the US Supreme Court on Thursday to prohibit Harvard University’s consideration of race in undergraduate admissions in a case that could end such affirmative action programmes.
Students for Fair Admissions, a group founded by anti-affirmative action activist Edward Blum, asked the justices to hear its appeal of a lower-court ruling upholding Harvard’s race-conscious admissions. A lawsuit backed by Blum accused Harvard of discriminating against Asian-American applicants.
Blum previously backed a lawsuit by a white woman challenging the affirmative action admissions policies of the University of Texas, leading to a 2016 Supreme Court ruling upholding the consideration of race in college admissions.
The Boston-based 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals in November ruled in favour of Harvard, deciding that the Ivy League school’s consideration of race was not “impermissibly extensive” and was “meaningful” because it prevented racial diversity from plummeting. A federal judge also ruled in favour of Harvard in 2019.
Legal experts have said the appeal offers the Supreme Court a possible vehicle to end more than four decades of allowing race as a factor in higher education admissions. Now with a 6-3 conservative majority, the court has moved rightward since the 2016 ruling.
“It is our hope that the justices will accept this case and finally end the consideration of race and ethnicity in college admissions,” Blum said in a statement.
