Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard College

Case Overview

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in June 2023 that race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina violate the Equal Protection Clause — effectively ending affirmative action in college admissions after more than 40 years of cases going back to Bakke. The majority held that while diversity is a compelling interest, the Harvard and UNC programs could not be reconciled with the requirement that race be considered only narrowly and as a plus factor, because they effectively classified students by race. Justice Jackson's dissent argued the majority was willfully ignoring the role race already plays in structuring American life and opportunity. Bryan uses it as the culmination of the affirmative action doctrine arc and as the Court's most direct statement yet that the Constitution's equality guarantee means colorblindness, not colorconscious remediation.