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The Supreme Court restricted affirmative action policies in college admissions in rulings released Thursday.
In its decision, the court struck down race-based affirmative action policies at both Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, with votes of 6-2 and 6-3. The majority opinion said the policies are unconstitutional and violate the 14th Amendment. Both state and private universities will no longer be allowed to consider race in their admissions process.
In a campuswide email, University of Maryland President Darryll Pines said that this university’s enrollment management team has been prepared for this decision, and is confident in the path forward.
The email was signed by multiple members of this university’s administration, including the dean of each college.
“Needless to say, this decision is disappointing,” the email said. “There is no getting around the fact that the role of race is changing in college admissions, but the University of Maryland will move forward with a bolstered commitment and a singular voice.”
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Universities and admissions programs must now comply with “strict scrutiny” to the court’s decision. In both cases, the decision determined that there was discrimination against Asian American applicants that violated the equal protection clause.
While the ruling prohibits universities from taking race into account in their admissions process, the decision does not prohibit universities from considering applicants’ discussion of how race has impacted their life.
The decision “rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress,” wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor in the dissenting opinion. “It holds that race can no longer be used in a limited way in college admissions to achieve such critical benefits.”
This university has previously considered race in its admissions process.
In Maryland, public high schools have a largely different racial makeup from the University of Maryland, the state’s public flagship university. Only 11 percent of 2020’s incoming freshman class at the university was made up of Black students, while 32 percent of 2020’s public high school graduates statewide were Black.
