U.S. Supreme Court Grants Certiorari in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina
SFFA Applauds the Supreme Court’s Decision. Encourages the Justices to End All Race-Based College Admissions Policies
SFFA releases “Admission”– a video highlighting the admissions policies of Harvard featuring Prof. Glen Loury (Brown Univ.); Prof. John Yoo (Univ. of California Law School-Berkeley); Prof. Peter Arcidiacono (Duke Univ.); Author Asra Nomani; Students Harrison Chen and Calvin Yang
(Arlington, VA) Today, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and Students for Fair Admission v. University of North Carolina, federal lawsuits brought by a nonprofit membership organization in 2014 alleging that Harvard and UNC’s admissions policies discriminate against Asian-American and white applicants.
After a three-week trial in 2018, a district court in Boston ruled in Harvard’s favor. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit upheld the lower court’s opinion. The case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in February, 2021.
The trial in the UNC case was conducted in November, 2020 with the court ruling in favor of UNC nearly one year later. On November 11, 2021, SFFA petitioned the Supreme Court to grant certiorari before judgement from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit so that both the Harvard and UNC cases could be heard together.
Edward Blum, president of SFFA, said, “We are grateful the Supreme Court accepted these important cases for review. It is our hope that the justices will end the use of race as an admissions factor at Harvard, UNC and all colleges and universities.”
Blum added, “Both the Pew Research Center and Gallup have released surveys which indicate that nearly 75% of Americans of all races do not believe race or ethnicity should be a factor in college admissions. 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. Our nation cannot remedy past discrimination and racial preferences with new discrimination and different racial preferences.”
Blum noted, “Harvard and the University of North Carolina have racially gerrymandered their freshman classes in order to achieve prescribed racial quotas. Every college applicant should be judged as a unique individual, not as some representative of a racial or ethnic group.”
Blum concluded, “The cornerstone of our nation’s civil rights laws is the principle that an individual’s race should not be used to help or harm them in their life’s endeavors. We hope the Supreme Court will use these cases to begin the restoration of the colorblind legal covenant that holds together Americans of all races and ethnicities.”
The video “Admission” can be found at studentsforfairadmissions.org here.