Students for Fair Admissions v Harvard and UNC

Why is it that college applications ask for your race or ethnicity?

Originally, these race-based questions were used to categorize people, but in modern cases, they are used for statistics to represent different races and can at times be a deciding factor in your admission to a college or university. This admission process is called affirmative action. Affirmative action is described as giving certain advantages to minorities, women, and others to promote equal employment opportunities. Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) is a nonprofit advocacy group that aims to eliminate race and ethnicity from college admissions. In 2014, the SFFA filed a lawsuit against Harvard College and the University of North Carolina. 

SFFA v Harvard and University of North Carolina

Students for Fair Admissions filed a lawsuit against the President & Fellows of Harvard College. They also sued the University of North Carolina and their administration. The SFFA claimed that races, like Asian Americans, were held to a higher standard when being admitted. They claimed that Harvard violated the Equal Protection Clause and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. 

• The Equal Protection Clause means that laws are fairly applied and that the government treats everyone equally to prevent discrimination.

• Title VI of the Civil Rights Act bans discrimination based on race or ethnicity in federally funded programs.

These institutions argued that race is considered in admissions to create a diverse student body. The Supreme Court decided that race-based admission violated the Constitution in a majority vote of 6-3. Chief Justice Roberts confirmed that the court would be voting against and putting an end to affirmative action. The lawsuit did not lead to the ruling being overturned, but it led to these institutions limiting how race can be considered during admission. 

Why does it matter?

If you are a student applying for a college or university, the extent to which race is limited in how it can affect admission processes. Now, these institutions can only consider race in your application if you discuss “how race may have affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise,” stated by Chief Justice Roberts. 

Many people who support upholding affirmative action believe that the ruling of a colorblind approach will lead to less diverse college and university campuses. States like Washington, Oklahoma, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Florida, Michigan, California, Idaho, and Arizona made the decision to ban race-conscious admission programs before the ruling. Some of these state schools expressed that maintaining racial diversity has become more of a challenge and that there was a decrease in the minority population after the ban. This led to schools investing in pipeline programs to ensure racially diverse applicants. Pipeline programs are initiatives that aim to increase diversity in education by providing resources to underrepresented groups.

Learn more

You can learn more about the Students for Fair Admissions project on studentsforfairadmissions.org/about, to see if you align with their motives on college admissions. 

References

• https://clearinghouse.net/case/14188/ 

• https://www.americanbar.org/groups/diversity/DiversityCommission/publications/the-innovator/vol7-issue2/feature2/ 

• https://www.oyez.org/cases/2022/21-707 

Resources

• https://www.equityinhighered.org/resources/resource-center/

• https://www.cue-tools.usc.edu/

• https://studentsforfairadmissions.org/about/ 

• https://studentsforfairadmissions.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/SFFA-v.-Harvard-Complaint.pdf 

• https://studentsforfairadmissions.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/SFFA-v.-UNC-Complaint.pdf