The Supreme Court on Thursday restricted how colleges can use race in admissions decisions, in a landmark ruling that struck down the affirmative action programs at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina.
The opinion from Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., joined by the court’s five other Republican appointees, upends decades of Supreme Court precedent that had allowed institutions of higher education to consider the race of applicants as one part of decisions about whether to admit them.
The decision reignited discussions about race and equality in Congress and among presidential candidates, and could signal a change in the court’s approach to the treatment of race in public institutions more broadly.
