Supreme Court ends affirmative action

2023-06-29 20:26:31

The highest American court questions this practice which gives more chances to students from minorities.

Washington Correspondent

The US Supreme Court ruled against positive discrimination in university admissions.This major decision calls into question decades of practices aimed at giving more chances to students from minorities to access higher education, by taking into account racial criteria in the admission process.

Favoring black students, these practices were contested by students from other backgrounds.

Complaints had been filed against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, two of the nation’s oldest institutions, by Students for Fair Admissions, which considered affirmative action n It was just another form of racial discrimination, and was done to the detriment of other students, especially Asians and Europeans, in violation of the 14th Amendment and civil rights laws.

«Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating it entirely“wrote the President of the Court, Judge John Roberts. “The student should be treated based on their experience as an individual, not on their race. For too long, many universities have done the exact opposite…and concluded, wrongly, that the essence of an individual’s identity is not the challenges they faced, the skills they had acquired or the lessons learned, but by the color of his skin. Our constitutional history does not condone this».

Justice Clarence Thomas, the second black judge to serve on the Court, a historic opponent of affirmative action, criticized these admissions policies as “unchecked, race-based preferences designed to ensure particular racial mixing in classrooms».

The three progressive judges criticized this judgment. “This decision sets back decades of advances and progress“wrote judge Sonia Sotomayor. She “creates a superficial rule of color blindness as a constitutional principle in a systematically segregated society, where race has always mattered and continues to matter…The Court ignores the dangerous consequences of an America whose leaders do not reflect the diversity of the people».

‘True tragedy’

Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first black woman to serve on the Supreme Court, called the decision “real tragedy for all of us». «The United States has never been blind to skin colorshe added. Deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it irrelevant in life“. She even lashed out at Thomas, the Court’s other black judge:Those who demand that race be ignored refuse to see, let alone address…the race-based disparities that continue to impede the realization of our great nation’s full potential.».

«Court Effectively Ended Affirmative Action in College Admissionscommented Joe Biden, and I strongly disagree with his decision». «Discrimination still exists in America!“, insisted the president, “and today’s decision changes nothing…. It’s one more hurdle a student has to overcome, and universities should recognize and value it…and be drivers of upward social mobility. But today, too often, this is not the case». «This is not a normal yard“, he finally asserted when asked if the Supreme Court had become a “court of thugs”.

Previous attempts to have the practice overturned by the Supreme Court had failed, with judges divided on the issue. Dominated by a conservative majority since the three nominations of Donald Trump, the Court has just taken a decision almost as important symbolically as the cancellation last year of the judgment Roe v. Wade, removing constitutional guarantees to abortion.

«It’s a great day for America“commented Trump. “This is the decision that everyone has been waiting for and hoping for… We are returning to a fully merit-based system, and that is how it should be!“, he congratulated.