Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College
The Supreme Court struck down race-conscious college admissions programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina, ruling that both schools' policies violated the Constitution's guarantee that all people stand equal before the law regardless of race.
The decision effectively ends affirmative action in higher education at selective universities nationwide, overturning more than four decades of precedent that had allowed schools to consider race as one factor in building diverse student bodies.
How it got here: Both universities won after lengthy bench trials; the First Circuit affirmed in the Harvard case; the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Harvard and certiorari before the Fourth Circuit could rule in the UNC case.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Students for Fair Admissions, a nonprofit advocacy group, sued Harvard College and the University of North Carolina separately, arguing that both schools' admissions policies — which considered applicants' race as one factor among many — discriminated against Asian American and other applicants who were not among the groups given racial preferences. Harvard's process weighed race at multiple stages including final "lop" decisions that winnowed the admitted class; UNC's process allowed readers to award a significant racial "plus" to underrepresented minority applicants at every review stage.
The question before the Court
May Harvard and the University of North Carolina use an applicant's race as one factor when deciding who gets admitted to their undergraduate programs?
The Court's answer
Yes — the Court ruled that Harvard's and UNC's race-conscious admissions programs are unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause. Although the Court had previously held that promoting campus diversity could justify a limited use of race, neither university could show that its goals were measurable enough for courts to review, that a clear connection existed between the racial categories used and the diversity benefits claimed, or that race was anything but a negative factor against applicants outside the preferred groups. Both programs also rested on the forbidden assumption that students of a given race share a characteristic viewpoint.
Equally fatal, neither Harvard nor UNC had any plan to stop using race, as prior rulings had always required. The Court had allowed race-conscious admissions only as a temporary measure; two decades after the 2003 Grutter decision predicted the practice would become unnecessary within 25 years, both universities said race would remain a factor indefinitely. The Court held that a permanently open-ended racial preference program cannot be reconciled with the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Colleges and universities that accept federal funding must immediately stop considering race anywhere in their admissions processes. Students who previously benefited from affirmative action — primarily Black and Hispanic applicants — are likely to see their odds of admission at selective schools decline, while schools must find race-neutral ways to maintain diversity, such as emphasizing socioeconomic background or first-generation student status.
What changes now
Both universities and all other colleges receiving federal funding must immediately stop considering race anywhere in their admissions processes. Schools can still pursue diverse student bodies through race-neutral means — such as giving additional consideration to socioeconomic disadvantage, first-generation student status, or geographic background — and may consider how race has personally shaped an individual applicant's life if any benefit is tied to specific qualities the student brings. Observers expect sharp declines in Black and Hispanic enrollment at selective institutions, mirroring drops seen in states that had already banned affirmative action.
What this does not decide
The ruling explicitly does not address race-conscious admissions at military academies, which may present "distinct interests." It also does not prohibit students from discussing how race shaped their individual lives in application essays — provided any resulting admissions benefit is tied to specific personal qualities, not used as a proxy for race itself.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Thomas
Justice Thomas writes separately to provide an originalist defense of the 'colorblind Constitution,' arguing the Fourteenth Amendment has always categorically prohibited all government racial classifications, including affirmative action. He contends Grutter was wrongly decided from the start and is today correctly overruled. He also argues that racial preferences may harm intended beneficiaries through academic 'mismatch' and stigma, and that race-neutral admissions at schools in California and Michigan have produced genuinely diverse classes without racial sorting.
Concurrence — Justice Gorsuch
Justice Gorsuch writes separately to argue that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 independently prohibits the universities' conduct, with no need to reach the constitutional question. He contends the statute's plain text — barring programs receiving federal money from discriminating 'on the ground of race' — always forbade what Harvard and UNC were doing. He criticizes the Bakke-era interpretation that collapsed Title VI into the Equal Protection Clause as 'judicial improvisation' that abandoned the law's clear command.
Concurrence — Justice Kavanaugh
Justice Kavanaugh writes separately to explain that today's ruling follows naturally from prior precedent. Grutter v. Bollinger explicitly approved race-conscious admissions for only another generation — roughly 25 years — not indefinitely. Because that period has elapsed, ending affirmative action is not a departure from Grutter but its logical conclusion. He acknowledges that racial discrimination and its effects persist, but says the Constitution and the Court's earlier cases left no other permissible course.
Dissent — Justice Sotomayor
Justice Sotomayor argues the majority overrules Bakke, Grutter, and Fisher without the special justification stare decisis demands, driven by policy preferences rather than any change in law or facts. She contends the Fourteenth Amendment — whose Reconstruction-era framers enacted race-conscious laws simultaneously — permits limited race-conscious measures to achieve equality. In her view, requiring universities to treat race as irrelevant in an endemically unequal society will deepen, not narrow, racial disparities in higher education and professional leadership nationwide.
Dissent — Justice Jackson
Justice Jackson (writing only as to the UNC case) traces centuries of race-based law and government policy — from slavery and Black Codes through Jim Crow, discriminatory federal housing programs, and exclusion from the GI Bill — that created the persistent wealth, health, and opportunity gaps separating Black and white Americans today. She argues UNC's holistic admissions process more accurately measures individual merit by accounting for these inherited race-linked disadvantages, and that the majority's race-blind mandate will delay, not hasten, genuine racial equality.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court applied 'strict scrutiny' — the most demanding constitutional test — to Harvard's and UNC's admissions programs, because both schools explicitly used race when deciding who to admit. Under strict scrutiny, a racial classification is constitutional only if it serves a 'compelling' government interest and is 'narrowly tailored,' meaning it uses race no more than absolutely necessary. The universities bore the full burden of proving both prongs.
- On compelling interest, the Court found that the universities' stated goals — training future leaders, fostering a robust exchange of ideas, enhancing cross-racial understanding — were too vague and standardless for meaningful judicial review. Courts could not determine whether these goals were being met, how much racial diversity was needed to meet them, or when racial preferences could lawfully stop, making it impossible for the judiciary to perform strict scrutiny at all.
- The programs also failed narrow tailoring because the racial categories used — lumping all Asian Americans together regardless of national origin, using an undefined 'Hispanic' category, and having no category for Middle Eastern students — bore only a loose and arbitrary connection to the specific diversity benefits the universities claimed. This mismatch between goals and means prevented courts from assessing whether race was truly necessary.
- Because college admissions are zero-sum — a fixed number of seats means any racial boost for some applicants necessarily reduces others' chances — the Court held that both programs used race as a forbidden 'negative' factor against non-benefited groups. The First Circuit had found Harvard's program led to an 11.1% drop in Asian American admissions. The Equal Protection Clause bars exactly this kind of racial penalty.
- Both programs also engaged in unconstitutional racial stereotyping by treating each student's racial identity as inherently contributing a distinct perspective — the very assumption the Court's prior rulings had prohibited. Admitting students 'on the basis of race' engages in the 'offensive and demeaning assumption that students of a particular race, because of their race, think alike,' which is contrary to the core purpose of the Equal Protection Clause.
- Finally, neither Harvard nor UNC had a logical end point for race-based admissions, as Grutter v. Bollinger had expressly required. Grutter approved racial preferences only as a temporary deviation from equal treatment; both schools acknowledged they had set no sunset date and expected to use race indefinitely. Because the Constitution does not permit permanently enshrined racial preferences, the programs could not stand.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Abrogates Grutter v. Bollinger (539 U.S. 306)
The Court adopts a rule incompatible with Grutter's approval of race-conscious admissions; the concurrence explicitly states Grutter is 'for all intents and purposes, overruled.'
Limits Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke (438 U.S. 265)
The diversity rationale Bakke established is preserved in principle, but the programs before the Court fail every limit Bakke imposed on how race may be used.
Reaffirms Brown v. Board of Education (347 U.S. 483)
The Court invokes Brown's foundational command that education must be available to all on equal terms as the historical basis for today's ruling.