US Supreme Court Bans Use Of Race, Ethnicity In University Admissions

Washington: 

The US Supreme Court on Thursday banned the use of race and ethnicity in university admissions, dealing a major blow to a decades-old practice that boosted educational opportunities for African-Americans and other minorities.

“The student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual — not on the basis of race,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion.

The justices broke six to three along conservative-liberal lines in the decision, which came after years of conservative antipathy to “affirmative action” policies that have sought diversity in school admissions and business and government hiring.

The court said that universities were free to consider an individual applicant’s personal experience — whether, for example, they grew up experiencing racism — in weighing their application over applicants more academically qualified.

But deciding primarily based on whether the applicant is white, Black or other is itself racial discrimination, Roberts wrote.

“Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice,” he said.

The court sided with an activist group, Students for Fair Admissions, that sued the oldest private and public institutions of higher education in the country — elite Harvard University and the University of North Carolina (UNC) — over their admissions policies.

The group claimed that race-conscious admissions policies discriminated against equally or better-qualified Asian Americans competing to enter the two universities.