US Court Rejects that Universities Give Preference to Minorities

The Supreme Court allows the states to hold a referendum to ban universities from considering race as a factor in decisions.

The top U.S. court has upheld the Michigan ban on college affirmative action in Michigan public universities. The verdict, which was announced last Tuesday, admits the state of Michigan is right and sets a precedent for others that might want to prohibit this law, which has helped racial minorities be admitted to higher education.

The state of Michigan has rejected affirmative action by referendum. The policy was approved in the 1960s to guarantee that minority and low-income students were accepted by public universities across the whole the country. The referendum, which resulted in 58 percent approval for the rejection, modified the state constitution to ban educational centers from considering race as a favor when it comes to admitting a student or not.

The Supreme Court’s decision is divided 6-2 — with Justice Elena Kagan recusing herself from the case — and doesn’t find affirmative action unconstitutional. However, it recognizes the right of citizens to ban it by referendum. From now on, universities will be able to prohibit this controversial measure, which, although successful, has always been attacked by the most conservative sectors because they claim that it discriminates against white students.

The ruling reflects how divided the magistrates remain on the issue, since the magistrates who voted in favor of the state of Michigan have made three different statements. According to Justice Anthony Kennedy, “This case is not about how the debate about racial preferences should be resolved. It is about who may resolve it”. In his opinion, that’s the citizens’ responsibility. He also argued that Americans may want to ban racial quotas because of the “resentment” they arouse.

The most progressive judges in the court, Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, voted against the ruling. They reject the decision of Michigan because they regard it as an attack against “members of historically marginalized groups, which rely on the federal courts to protect their constitutional rights.”

[Sotomayor] writes in her dissent, backed by Ginsburg, “But without checks, democratically approved legislation can oppress minority groups … As members of the judiciary tasked with intervening to carry out the guarantee of equal protection, we ought not sit back and wish away, rather than confront, the racial inequality that exists in our society.” In Sotomayor and Ginsburg’s opinion, this case is a case in point of where to draw the line when it comes to protecting minorities and guaranteeing their equality before the law. “The Constitution does not protect racial minorities from political defeat. But neither does it give the majority free rein to erect selective barriers against racial minorities.”

Justice Sotomayor has said many times that she was admitted to Princeton University thanks to an affirmative action program that benefited young Hispanics when it came to admissions. She has openly defended that this law should remain. Clarence Thomas, a conservative African-American judge, has recognized he got into Yale University because of the same reason. However, he’s in favor of removing affirmative action.

In the last years, there have been several demands to try and ban affirmative action, claiming that it is no longer necessary. In 2012, the Supreme Court considered the case of a student from Texas, who argued that she had not been admitted to a university because minority students were given preference. On that occasion, the judges decided that a lower court had to reconsider the ruling and admitted that the legislation could face future changes because of the changing demographics in the country.