Since 1978, when affirmative action in college admissions was first upheld by the US supreme court, civil rights leaders have fended off various challenges to dismantle the policy. Last week, those challenges finally prevailed, as the court struck down race-conscious admissions, ruling them unconstitutional. Breaking away from decades of precedent, the chief justice, John Roberts, wrote in his opinion that universities had “concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned but the color of their skin. Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice.”
I spoke to several civil rights advocates who are now hoping to curtail the fallout from the supreme court’s decision. Some noted what they saw as a loophole: the court did not explicitly rule out consideration of a student’s race in all situations. Roberts’s statement continued: “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.”
