What are the cases against Harvard and UNC about?

The cases spotlight perennial questions about how highly competitive universities select incoming classes from a flood of applications, whether they treat applicants of different racial backgrounds fairly when reviewing their files and how these schools can legitimately pursue their goals of obtaining a diverse student body. Students for Fair Admissions alleged that Harvard illegally discriminated against Asian Americans; gave too much weight to race in making admission decisions; engineered the demographics of incoming classes to meet certain predetermined goals through “racial balancing”; and did not give adequate consideration to “race-neutral” alternatives. The plaintiff alleged that UNC-Chapel Hill discriminated against White and Asian American applicants, and made other allegations that echoed those in its suit against Harvard. In each case, the universities denied wrongdoing and said their admissions practices followed Supreme Court precedent. They won legal victories in lower courts.

What’s at stake here?

Students for Fair Admission has been quite plain about its agenda. It wants to bar the consideration of race in college admissions and force schools to use other means to pursue diversity. The two universities, one public and one private, want to preserve how they process tens of thousands of applications a year, and they specifically want to be able to take race into account. There are also larger questions about whether affirmative action of any sort will be allowed in admissions and how much deference schools will be given to assemble the kind of classes they want on campus. “Considering race as one factor among many in admissions decisions produces a more diverse student body which strengthens the learning environment for all,” Harvard President Lawrence S. Bacow said in a statement vowing a vigorous defense of the university’s practices. Many higher education leaders support his views. They are eager to draw more students from underrepresented minority groups to their campuses, and they say diversity will suffer if race is excluded from decision-making. “We are deeply concerned about the possibility that admissions offices will not be able to take race into consideration in the future,” said Angel Pérez, chief executive of the National Association for College Admission Counseling. “It’s frightening, to be honest.”

What does affirmative action mean?

In general, it is the idea that steps should be taken, through policies and programs, to improve educational or employment opportunities for certain demographic groups that have faced past discrimination or inequities. In practice, that often means giving members of those groups a potential boost in their chances of getting hired to a job, obtaining a contract or being admitted to college.

How does it factor into college admissions?

There is a major emphasis in admissions these days on improving diversity across many dimensions. That could mean a boost for applicants whose parents are poor or did not go to college. Or for women seeking to study computer science or another field in which they are underrepresented. But the debate in higher education usually centers on race and ethnicity and how much colleges consider those elements of an applicant’s background in their effort to raise the enrollment of Latino, Black and Native American students.

How has the Supreme Court ruled on the issue in the past?

The Supreme Court has addressed race and higher education in landmark decisions. In 1978, its ruling in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke outlawed racial quotas — steps that set aside a specific number of seats for various racial groups. But the ruling also left the door open for the use of affirmative action in admissions within certain parameters. At the time, Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. cited the “Harvard College program” as an exemplar of race-conscious admissions because it did not use explicit numerical quotas to achieve diversity. “This kind of program treats each applicant as an individual in the admissions process,” Powell wrote. Subsequent Supreme Court rulings, in 2003 in Grutter v. Bollinger and in 2016 in Fisher v. University of Texas , continued to uphold the limited use of race-conscious admissions . However, the court in its 2016 opinion was closely divided, 4-3, and its membership has changed significantly. The author of that majority opinion, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, has retired, and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who also supported the opinion, died in 2020. President Donald Trump appointed their replacements.

How much do colleges consider race now?

When schools do take race into account, they are usually quick to add that it is only one of many factors in a holistic review. For example, the University of Maryland lists 26 review factors on its website. Race and ethnicity are two among them, but so are high school achievements, grades in academic subjects, work experience, SAT or ACT scores, community involvement and many other indicators. U-Md. said the factors are “flexibly applied” in an “individualized, rigorous and holistic review of each application, assessing academic merit, achievements and potential in the context of the opportunities and challenges the student faced.” Harvard describes race as a potential “tip,” or plus factor, that could influence a close decision if a applicant comes from an underrepresented group such as Black or Latino students. Harvard says race can only be a plus and is never a minus. There are other tips in the Harvard system, including whether one of the student’s parents graduated from the undergraduate college, whether a student comes from a low-income family and whether a student has special athletic talent. “Tips come into play only at a high level of merit; the Committee never gives enough of a tip to admit an average candidate at the expense of a first-rate one,” Harvard said in a handbook for alumni interviewers made public through the lawsuit. Opponents of affirmative action say any attention paid to race in such a high-stakes process as college admissions is too much attention. Explanations from colleges about “tips” and “factors” and “holistic review” don’t hold much weight with individual applicants who say they were wrongly denied admission. “In a multi-racial, multi-ethnic nation like ours, the college admissions bar cannot be raised for some races and ethnic groups but lowered for others,” said Edward Blum, president of Students for Fair Admissions.

Do all colleges consider race in admissions?

No. Nine states have banned the consideration of race in admissions to public universities. Among them are California, Florida and Michigan. In 2020, California voters rejected by a wide margin an initiative that would have repealed their state’s affirmative action ban.

What alternatives are there to considering race?

Some say colleges can achieve racial diversity indirectly by targeting students for geographic diversity or socio-economic diversity. These “race-neutral” programs have received mixed reviews. Scholars have debated the cause of declines in the share of Black or Latino students at some major universities where race is not considered. The University of California at Berkeley — which is barred from considering race under the 1996 voter-approved initiative known as Proposition 209 — in July 2020 trumpeted its most ethnically diverse admitted class in more than 30 years.

How diverse are the nation’s top colleges?

Federal data show that in the fall of 2020, 57 percent of undergraduates at UNC-Chapel Hill were White. Eight percent identified as Black or African American, 12 percent as Asian and 9 percent as Hispanic or Latino. Four percent were international residents. At Harvard, federal data for 2020 show 36 percent of undergraduates identified as White, 11 percent as Black or African American, 21 percent as Asian and 12 percent as Hispanic or Latino. Another 11 percent were international students. new Such numbers do not show the full picture because many students identify as multiracial or do not specify their racial background. Demographics of enrolled students also can vary significantly from the background of all who were offered admission. More broadly, experts say, highly selective schools tend to be less diverse than those that are less selective. But the highly selective schools are seeking to make strides. “They’ve become progressively better at it, but they’re not to a place where that diversity stands on its own,” said Jerry Lucido, executive director of the Center for Enrollment Research, Policy and Practice at the University of Southern California. “This notion of using race as one of many factors in college admissions is still quite critical to them in their ability to diversify their student bodies.”

Will these cases affect my college application?

Crucial application deadlines for selective schools are in November for early admission — and in January for the regular round of admission. But anyone who is now applying to enter college next fall should know that the justices are unlikely to issue a ruling on these cases in time to affect their candidacy for admission. A decision in these high-profile cases will likely arrive late in the court’s term, in June or perhaps early July. By that time, decisions on the fall 2023 entering class will be done. But the ruling is likely to shape the admissions landscape for students who are now high school juniors or younger. Colleges are probably anticipating that possibility now as they make recruiting plans. Robert Barnes contributed to this report.

Higher Education

How is affirmative action used in college admissions?

Answers to some frequently asked questions as the Supreme Court prepares to weigh in on the issue again

By Nick Anderson

and

Susan Svrluga

Updated October 27, 2022 at 1:04 p.m. EDT|Published January 24, 2022 at 5:13 p.m. EST

The Supreme Court said it will again review whether colleges may consider race in admissions policies. (Daniel Slim/AFP/Getty Images)

The Supreme Court is again taking up the controversial question of how much race can be considered in college admissions, or whether it should even be considered at all.

On Monday the court will hear oral arguments in lawsuits against the race-conscious admission processes at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It had announced in January that it would review lower-court rulings in the cases, continuing a long-running national debate over affirmative action in higher education.

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A plaintiff called Students for Fair Admissions had alleged in two separate suits filed in 2014 that the processes were riddled with unlawful racial bias. In each case, lower courts ruled against the plaintiff and upheld the systems the two universities use.

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