UC Santa Barbara Scholars Reflect on Supreme Court Ruling and Higher Education in Post-Affirmative Action Era
Professors Pei-te Lien and Jeffrey Milem Share Their Perspective on Court’s Position and Where UCSB Stands Now
This article was originally published in UCSB’s ‘The Current‘.
In its recent ruling against admissions policies that take race into account at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed its decades-long position on affirmative action, further complicating the challenges faced by institutes of higher education to increase, or even maintain, diverse student bodies.
Leading the court’s conservative supermajority, Chief Justice Roberts stressed that admissions policies that take race into account unconstitutionally violate the guarantee of equal protection under the 14th Amendment. In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the ruling was “devastating” and that the court was “further entrenching racial inequality in education.”
