The Supreme Court will hear two affirmative action cases Monday, involving UNC and Harvard. But a court that has twice blessed race-conscious college admissions programs in the past 19 years now seems poised to restrict their use or outlaw them altogether.
A student walks by the Old Well at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a rotunda and campus landmark at the southern end of McCorkle Place, on Monday, Oct. 24, 2022.
The challengers to the universities’ programs have lost at every step as lower courts have rejected their claims that the schools discriminate against white and Asian American applicants. On a recent, brilliant fall day in Chapel Hill, students talked about what they see as the benefits and drawbacks of affirmative action in college admissions.Christina Huang, an 18-year-old freshman from West Milford, New Jersey, who is co-director of UNC for Affirmative Action, said diversity on campus enriches the learning environment for all students, even outside the classroom.
Jacob James, 20, of Robersonville, North Carolina, recognized the value of diversity. “Diversity on college campuses is good, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of fairness,” said James, the chairman of UNC College Republicans. Affirmative action, he said, “unfairly disadvantages some individuals over other individuals based on race.”
“The implications extend well beyond UNC and Harvard. It may very well result in a different outcome than what we have seen in the Bakke case, the Grutter case in 2003, the Fisher cases,” Granberry Russell said, citing the court’s earlier college admissions cases.