Is the SCOTUS Ruling Bad for Affirmative Action Supporters?

At the root, Perry Bacon, Jr. of The Grio says that “the Supreme Court’s ruling yesterday, while not the death blow to affirmative action that many of its supporters had feared, continues a push led by the Court’s conservatives to impose very high standards on any consideration of race in public policy and will likely make it harder for universities and other institutions to defend racial preferences in future cases.”

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The Supreme Court ruled on the admission policies at the University of Texas and whether it violates the rights of some white applicants.

Abigail Noel Fisher of

Sugar Land, Texas, sued the University of Texas after her college application was rejected in 2008. She claims it was because she is white and that she was being treated differently than some “less-qualified” minority students who were accepted.

In a statement after the ruling Fisher said, “I am grateful to the justices for moving the nation closer to the day when a student’s race isn’t used at all in college admissions.”

The Court’s 7-1 ruling doesn’t affirm or reject the affirmative action programs at the University of Texas at Austin or any other school in the country, so its direct implications depend on how the court and lower courts interpret the justices’ words. But the ruling ensures affirmative action programs across the country will continue to be challenged in court, and it weakens the defenders of affirmative action on two grounds.