Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson accused their conservative colleagues on the Supreme Court of ignoring the persistent presence of racism in the United States in striking down affirmative action in college admissions on Thursday.
Sotomayor, in a 69-page dissent in a case against Harvard, characterized the court’s ruling as one that “rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress.”
In deciding “that race can no longer be used in a limited way in college admissions,” the court effectively “cements a superficial rule of colorblindness as a constitutional principle in an endemically segregated society where race has always mattered and continues to matter,” Sotomayor wrote.
Sotomayor, the third woman and the first Latina member of the court, has described herself as a “perfect affirmative action baby.” Jackson is the first Black woman on the court.
“The Court subverts the constitutional guarantee of equal protection by further entrenching racial inequality in education, the very foundation of our democratic government and pluralistic society,” Sotomayor added. “Because the Court’s opinion is not grounded in law or fact and contravenes the vision of equality embodied in the Fourteenth Amendment, I dissent.”
The court ruled Thursday that the University of North Carolina and Harvard violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution by considering race as a factor in the admissions process.
The vote was 6-3 in the UNC case, and 6-2 in the Harvard case.
Sotomayor dissented in both cases, while Jackson dissented in the UNC case and recused herself from the Harvard case. Jackson was on Harvard’s board of overseers until last year. Justice Elena Kagan joined both dissenting opinions.
The ruling stands to end the systematic consideration of race in the admissions process.
A society that ‘has never been colorblind’
The equal protection clause was designed to preserve “a guarantee of racial equality,” Sotomayor wrote, stating that…
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