Schuette v. Coal. to Defend Affirmative Action
The Court upheld a Michigan constitutional amendment, approved by voters, that bars the state's public universities from considering race in admissions decisions.
The ruling makes clear that voters, not courts, may decide whether to allow or forbid race-conscious admissions policies, reinforcing that this is a matter left to the democratic process rather than a constitutional entitlement either way.
How it got here: A federal trial court upheld the amendment; the Sixth Circuit, sitting en banc, reversed and struck it down; Michigan's attorney general sought Supreme Court review.
The Case in Depth
What happened
After the Supreme Court's 2003 rulings limiting how University of Michigan schools could weigh race in admissions, Michigan voters in 2006 passed Proposal 2, amending the state constitution to prohibit public universities from granting racial preferences in admissions. A coalition including students, faculty, and advocacy groups sued, arguing the amendment unconstitutionally reorganized the political process to disadvantage racial minorities seeking such policies.
The question before the Court
Could Michigan voters amend their state constitution to ban public universities from using race as a factor in admissions?
Why it matters
The decision lets Michigan and similarly situated states keep bans on race-conscious admissions enacted through ballot initiatives, without facing special constitutional hurdles for doing so through direct democracy. It also signals to advocates on both sides of the debate that ballot campaigns, rather than lawsuits invoking a "political process" theory, are the main avenue for changing such policies going forward.
What changes now
The Sixth Circuit's decision striking down the amendment is reversed, so Michigan's ban on race-conscious admissions preferences remains in effect as a final matter on the merits. The ruling does not address the separate question of whether race-conscious admissions policies are themselves constitutional when adopted; it simply confirms that voters may choose to prohibit them. Similar state bans adopted by ballot initiative elsewhere are likely to remain undisturbed by this decision.
What this does not decide
The Court expressly said this case was not about whether race-conscious admissions policies are constitutional or wise—only about whether voters may choose to prohibit them. It left untouched prior rulings, like Grutter, that permit (but do not require) limited race-conscious admissions.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Roberts
Chief Justice Roberts wrote separately to respond directly to the dissent, arguing that disagreeing with race-sensitive admissions policies is not the same as refusing to take race seriously, and that people can debate the costs and benefits of such preferences in good faith on either side.
Concurrence — Justice Scalia
Justice Scalia, joined by Justice Thomas, agreed the amendment should stand but argued the entire political-process doctrine from Hunter and Seattle should be overruled as unworkable and inconsistent with equal-protection principles requiring proof of discriminatory intent. He would have held that a law requiring equal treatment can never itself deny equal protection.
Concurrence — Justice Breyer
Justice Breyer concurred in the judgment on narrower grounds, reasoning that Hunter and Seattle do not apply here because Michigan's amendment shifted admissions authority from unelected university administrators to the voters, rather than reallocating power between two elected political levels as in those earlier cases.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The plurality examined the Court's 'political-process doctrine,' a rule from earlier cases holding that reallocating decisionmaking authority over a 'racial issue' to a higher level of government can itself violate equal protection, without any separate showing of discriminatory intent.
- The plurality found that the doctrine's earlier applications, in Reitman v. Mulkey and Hunter v. Erickson, involved actual, demonstrated injuries to racial minorities caused or worsened by state action, not merely a shift in which government body decided a policy question.
- Applying that narrower reading to Seattle, the plurality concluded that decision was best understood as addressing a specific risk of racial injury tied to the school district's history, not as announcing a freestanding rule that courts must identify which policies serve a racially defined group's 'interest.'
- The plurality reasoned that requiring courts to decide what serves a racial group's political interest would force judges into defining people by race and guessing at group viewpoints, raising serious equal-protection problems of its own.
- Because Michigan's ban on race-based admissions preferences did not inflict the kind of specific racial injury present in the earlier cases, the plurality concluded there was no basis to override the voters' decision to adopt Proposal 2 through the ordinary amendment process.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Limits Washington v. Seattle School Dist. No. 1 (458 U. S. 457)
The plurality narrowed Seattle's broad rule to apply only where a specific racial injury, like those in Mulkey and Hunter, is at stake.
Reaffirms Hunter v. Erickson (393 U. S. 385)
The plurality treated Hunter as still valid but reinterpreted it narrowly as resting on a demonstrated racial injury, not a broad political-process rule.