The Rise and Fall of the Consideration of Race and Ethnicity in the Admissions Process: The Long-Term Negative Consequences of the Fall

Chief Justice Roberts wrote the majority opinion for the Supreme Court that struck down the affirmative action policies of Harvard College and the University of North Carolina. While Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh each wrote separate concurring opinions, they also joined Chief Justice Roberts’s opinion along with Justices Alito and Barrett. Thus, unlike the Court’s prior significant decisions that narrowly upheld affirmative action by one vote, this decision’s six-Justice majority allowed Chief Justice Roberts to write an opinion that more definitively rejected affirmative action than the Court’s tentative and cautious opinions upholding it. Despite what many may think about the Court’s affirmative action decisions, those opinions always required the role race played in admissions “to be cabined” and extremely limited.