The US Supreme Court has just banned all racial selection criteria for university admissions, with the ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina and Harvard putting an end to affirmative action. In the Black Lives Matter era, the number of Blacks and Hispanics in elite institutions will decline. In order to avoid isolation, they may even avoid them more. “Racially neutral” selection measures, based on such criteria as ZIP code, will not be able to compensate for the decline.
The six-justice conservative majority, appointed by Republican presidents, is continuing to roll out its reactionary agenda. One year after overturning Roe v. Wade, it banned affirmative action on the grounds that it was merely racial discrimination, and in another ruling the next day, it authorized a right to homophobic discrimination in the name of religious freedom.
Affirmative action marked a decisive stage in the history of civil rights in the United States. Indeed, it was in response to the movement that it took shape in 1965, in an executive order issued by Lyndon B. Johnson. The president explained then that it was not enough to “take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, ‘you are free to compete with all the others.'” However, as early as 1978, the political backward surge reduced the scope of these reparations, with the first ruling: Regents of the University of California v. Bakke.
To be sure, for four of the justices at that time, it was necessary to “remedy disadvantages cast on minorities by past racial prejudice.” But four others affirmed that “the Constitution itself required a colorblind standard on the part of government.” The ninth justice’s opinion outlined a lasting compromise: While racial quotas were prohibited, universities could use racial criteria, but only among others, to ensure diversity among admitted students. The court then subjected this criterion to “strict scrutiny”: It is legitimate only if it serves a “compelling interest.”
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