On Monday, the Supreme Court began hearing arguments in two cases challenging the use of racial considerations to determine who gets into American colleges.
The arguments, which are expected to last several hours, involve claims against affirmative action in admissions at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina.
“Racial classification is wrong,” attorney Patrick Strawbridge said in his opening statement on behalf of the group Students for Fair Admissions.
“This court has always said that racial profiling is objectionable,” Strawbridge told Justice Clarence Thomas, a conservative, who asked about affirmative action advocates who argue that racial profiling speaks to the “whole person” seeking college admissions.
Students for Fair Admissions is seeking to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision in Grutter v. Bollinger, which found in 2003 that colleges can take race into account in admissions in order to have diverse campuses.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted that the 14th Amendment, enacted after the Civil War, considered race to help black Americans gain access to parts of society they were denied during slavery.
“You assume that race is the only factor that attracts someone,” said Sotomayor, a liberal justice, referring to college admissions.
Strawbridge later said Asian applicants were disadvantaged by affirmative action policies that benefited black applicants, a factor he believed underscored the unfairness and unconstitutionality of the policy.
“Some races benefit, some races don’t,” he said.
Strawbridge said using race to determine who gets into college is “inherently divisive.”
Sotomayor challenged Strawbridge to come up with any example in the court record where an applicant got into a college simply because of his race.
She and the other liberal justices argued in their questions that race was only one of many factors that influence how colleges decide who will be admitted.
One of the judges, Ketanji Brown Jackson, said: “They are looking at a complete person with all these characteristics.”
Conservatives have a 6-3 supermajority on the Supreme Court and are expected to be open to arguments for ending affirmative action.
“I’ve heard the word ‘diversity’ a few times and I have no idea what it means,” said Thomas, who was only the second black person appointed to the Supreme Court after the attorney who defended affirmative action policies at UNC. began his argument.
“It seems to mean everything to everyone.”
Thomas said he “doesn’t give much weight” to the diversity argument because he has heard similar arguments in favor of segregation.
The cases at issue are Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard, Case #20-1199, and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina, Case #21-707.
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