Biden administration plans executive action after Supreme Court ruling | DW News

The US Supreme Court on Thursday overturned years of precedent to rule that universities and colleges can no longer consider race or ethnicity as factors when they select their students.

The court's six conservative justices — Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — voted to strike down race-based admissions considerations. Liberal Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, voted to uphold them.

The 6-3 conservative majority found the practice of affirmative action discriminatory — not a tool for ensuring diversity and enhancing educational opportunities for Blacks, Hispanics and other minorities.

Ruling against Harvard, the oldest private college in the US; and the University of North Carolina (UNC), the nation's oldest public university, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion, "The student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual — not on the basis of race."

What has the White House said?

Within hours of the decision, President Joe Biden spoke at the White House about its ramifications. In short but impassioned remarks, Biden said he strongly disagreed with the majority opinion, instead agreeing with the dissenting opinion's claim that, "it rolls back decades of precedent."

Biden, who said colleges and universities had enjoyed the freedom to decide how to diversify their student bodies for 45 years, argued that schools and the nation as a whole are "stronger when they are racially diverse."

After encouraging institutions of higher learning to consider the adversity that individual students had overcome to qualify for admission — adversity such as low income upbringings in poor neighborhoods with disadvantaged schools — Biden said, "discrimination still exists in America, today's decision does not change that."

He also sought to defuse the argument that race was allowing unqualified students to gain admission to schools before railing against legacy admissions policies that benefit generally wealthy students whose family members had previously attended a school.

Biden said legacy policies, "expand privilege rather than opportunity," and he bemoaned the fact that, "the odds have been stacked against working people for far too long."

In closing, he admonished those listening to "remember that diversity is our strength," noting "we cannot let this decision be the last word."

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