


The Supreme Court struck down affirmative action programs at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina Thursday, ruling that both institutions were in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The decision overturns the Supreme Court’s 2003 ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger, which found that colleges could consider race as one factor in the admissions process to achieve a diverse student body.
“Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. “And the Equal Protection Clause, we have accordingly held, applies ‘without regard to any differences of race, of color, or of nationality’—it is ‘universal in [its] application.'”
Roberts was joined in his opinion by all five of his colleagues on the court’s conservative wing: Justice Samuel Alito, Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Amy Coney Barrett and Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
The court’s three liberals, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented in the UNC case, while Jackson — a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School as well as a former member of the university’s Board of Overseers, recused herself from the matter involving the Ivy League school.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.