Affirmative Action Overturned By Supreme Court Scathing Dissent By Sotomayor and Kentanji Brown

The Supreme Court recently overturned a landmark decision on affirmative action, ruling that colleges and universities can no longer consider race in admissions. Chief Justice Roberts argued that these programs violated the Equal Protection Clause and lacked measurable objectives. Justice Sotomayor and Justice Jackson dissented, emphasizing the importance of racial diversity and criticizing the majority's decision. The ruling does not apply to military service academies. Legal analysts believe this decision will have a significant impact on education and may lead to further legal challenges. Some argue that colleges and universities will find alternative ways to consider race in admissions. Overall, this ruling has sparked controversy and will likely continue to be debated. Hello and welcome to this episode of the Diary of a Lawyer. I just want to briefly revisit the affirmative action case that the Supreme Court two days ago essentially overturned. I want to focus mainly on the dissenting judges, Justice Sotomayor and in particular Justice Katanji who is the only black woman to be on the Supreme Court. But before we get there I want to just give a brief background and read the majority opinion read by Chief Justice Roberts. So the Supreme Court says that colleges and universities can no longer take race into consideration as a specific basis for granting admission which is a landmark decision overturning long-standing precedent that has benefited black and Latina students in higher education. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote an opinion for the conservative majority saying that Harvard and University of North Carolina admission programs violated the Equal Protection Clause because they failed to offer what he calls quote unquote measurable objectives to justify the use of race. He said the programs involved racial stereotyping and had no specific end point. I'm going to briefly read a quote that he says. He says, The Harvard and UNC admissions, University of North Carolina admissions programs cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause and both programs lack sufficiently focused and measurable objectives to warrant the use of race and avoidably employ race in a negative manner which involves racial stereotyping and lacks meaningful end points. He goes on to say that we've never permitted admissions programs to work in that way and we will not do so today. It's paradoxical of course that he is saying race should not be a factor when in fact race is a factor in almost every sphere. of life in the United States, especially a country that as one of their foundations was based on slavery. And it's fitting that slavery a few days ago was, you know, there was a memorial slavery day and their calls for reparation. So on the one hand he's saying race should be a factor but on the other hand it is a factor in real life, a point that was picked up by the strong defense by Justice Sotomayor and Justice Guttentsch. First of all let me read what Justice Sotomayor wrote. She says, Justice Sotomayor was joined by Eleanor Kagan and Katanji Brown Jackson saying that the opinion rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress and says that the result of the decision is that a person's skin color may play a role in assessing individualized suspicion but it cannot play a role in assessing that person's individualized contributions to a diverse learning environment, wrote Sotomayor. She goes on to say that it is indefensible that that indefensible reading of the Constitution is not grounded in law and subverts the Fountains Amendment's guarantee of equal protection. And in a further demonstration of the controversial nature of the case, Justices read their dissents from the bench for the first time since 2019. Sotomayor says that the devastating impact of this decision cannot be overstated while reading a synopsis from her bench and in ending her dissent she quoted Dr. Martin Luther King attempting to end the opinion on an optimistic note. She says, and I quote, as has been the case before in the history of American democracy, the arc of the moral universe will bend towards racial justice despite the court's efforts to impede its progress, she said. And pointed out she did not use the customary language, I respectfully dissent. That can be read by folks in whatever way they wish. Now, in her own dissent, Jackson, who is the only black woman on the bench as I mentioned, says that the majority have focused or applied a quote, let them indicate obliviousness, unquote, in how the ruling announced colorblindness for all by what she called lingophilia. And that by deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life, she said. Jackson wrote that the majority had detached itself from this country's actual past and present experiences, as I mentioned, and added that no one benefits from ignorance, which a strong was, but I think some dissidents argue are fitting. Interestingly, the ruling says that US military service academies can continue to take risks in consideration of the factor in admissions, and in a footnote, in the majority opinion, Justice Roberts says that the cases before the court did not address the issue, and that's often the possibility that there are potentially distinct interests that military academies may present in a future case. However, during oral argument, the solicitor general Elizabeth Prologa stressed the unique interests of the military and argued that race-based admission programs further the nation's compelling interests of diversity. And Jackson called out the caveat in her defense. She says, the court has come to rest on the bottom line conclusion that racial diversity in higher education is only worth potentially preserving insofar as it might be needed to prepare black Americans and other underrepresented minorities for success in the bunker, not the boardroom, and brackets, a particularly awkward place to land, a light of a history the majority opts to ignore, Jackson wrote. Now, that's important. Effectively, she's saying that it's okay for underrepresented minorities and black folks to go to the bunker and in the trenches and give up their lives where race is not considered, or at least in terms of, whilst using affirmative action, but it's not okay in other professions. However, it is widely believed that the challenges in the case targeted Harvard and the University of North Carolina, arguing that their programs violate equal protection, but they asked the court to overturn the precedent and insist that higher education should explore and further develop mutual affirmatives to the nation's compelling interests. And it is believed that the Supreme Court stepped in to consider the case before it was heard by the federal appeals court, but it's believed that the legal arguments will continue, and it's not the end of the road. There is almost a leeway that was left in there that gives room for those who believe in affirmative action to sort of utilize in whilst maintaining the ruling to be creative in practical application whilst not essentially violating what is now law. And it's a very, again, interesting take again in yet another ruling in the US Supreme Court, but some legal analysts like Chief CNN Chief Analyst Laura Cote say the Supreme Court decision will have to bring changes to the education in the US. She's quoted as saying that the opinion, and she's saying make no mistake about it, is going to change the landscape of education. And that's what the majority has asked for. Other observers believe that this will not end the legal fight over college admissions, and they say that in a state that has already banned racial preferences and gone after diversity statements and other subterfuge uses of racial admissions, the decision is going to make it virtually impossible for colleges and universities to take race into account in any specific admissions. However, but instead they'll continue to permit colleges and universities to take race into account, there will surely be efforts to encourage the sort of kinds of views that the majority doesn't expressly disavow, whether in diversity statements or elsewhere. And litigation challenging those efforts as being consistent with the state, if not a letter, of today's decision. And that statement is attributed to CNN's Supreme Court analyst, Stephen Spaldavec, who is also a professor at the University of Texas School of Law. And so that is it in a nutshell, which is the take two of the court's affirmative decision, respectively overturning decades of law, as it did in the case of Roe v. Wade, and the gun rights, and other issues that have affected, and LGBTQ rights as well, which led to the US court in answer to a question from a reporter describing the court as not a normal court. And so, there we shall leave it on this episode of the Diary of a Lawyer, and we shall see you again. Thank you, and thanks for listening. Bye.