As the The Supreme Court is preparing To hear the arguments in a case that could determine the future of affirmative action on college campuses, hundreds of pundits, lawmakers and major corporations have filed amicus briefs pleading on behalf of both parties involved.
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Monday in two cases involving the admissions policies of Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) sued both schools, alleging that their policies, which consider race as a factor in admissions, discriminate against Asian American applicants.
The SFFA first sued Harvard in 2014 and is now asking the Supreme Court to overturn its landmark 2003 Grutter v. Bollinger, which considered race as a factor in college admissions because he believed that the diversity of the student body was “a compelling state interest”.
Big companies like Google, Uber and Starbucks, along with teachers’ unions and prestigious universities, have submitted amicus briefs asking the Supreme Court to rule in favor of Harvard, allowing the practice of race to be taken into account in the university admissions process.
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The Supreme Court in Washington, DC
(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
A brief submitted by the American Federation of Teachers, one of the largest teachers’ unions in the United States, argued that all students, and society as a whole, will benefit from racial diversity on college campuses. The teachers’ union also said results from states that don’t allow race to be considered in college admissions are “troubling.”
A group of large companies, including those in technology, airlines, manufacturing and retail, have touted the importance of a diverse workforce, saying they are “looking for employees who have been educated at universities and have been exposed to a wide range of life experiences and viewpoints, and who can bring diverse perspectives and experiences to the workplace.”
Other Ivy League and highly sought-after universities have also come to Harvard’s defense, including Georgetown University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brown University.
Even the National Association of Basketball Coaches weighed in on the case in favor of Harvard, detailing the experiences of student-athletes who “are among the most diverse groups on campus.” Coaches have warned that sports teams could become “a diverse island within an otherwise homogeneous student body, isolating athletes from the wider college community.”
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A brief filed in support of Harvard even noted that several members of the Supreme Court, namely Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson, benefited from affirmative action and warned that the court “may have to seek it. [Jackson’s] dismissal of the Court, if it declares that any affirmative action based on race is illegal.”
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson and Vice President Kamala Harris hug after the conclusion of an event on the South Lawn of the White House April 08, 2022 in Washington, DC.
(Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
A joint brief filed by several education groups representing K-12 schools, asserted their “strong interest” in ensuring Grutter “remains good law,” because school districts across the states States “have adopted ‘mechanisms’ that ‘pursue the goal of bringing together students of diverse backgrounds and races.” The brief, however, chastised the claim that the case “has potential implications for schools K-12”. One notable party in the brief, the National School Boards Association, sadly called on the Biden administration to end alleged parental threats and violence directed at school board members for actions that could be “equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.”
Legislators, ranging from members of Congress to attorneys general weighed in on both sides of the issue.
More than 60 Democratic members of Congress, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, signed a memorandum signaling their support for Harvard University because “since Grutter, segregation in K-12 educational institutions Grade 12 has increased, and as a result, educational inequalities have worsened.” they believe race-conscious admissions policies are necessary. The Biden administration also submitted a brief supporting the use of race in college admissions.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi of California, speaks during a press conference, Thursday, May 19, 2022, on Capitol Hill in Washington.
(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Lawmakers across the aisle backed students for fair admissions, with a group of Republican senators and representatives including Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., Writing a brief in support of the SFFA that described the earlier Grutter case as a “constitutional anomaly.”
“Decisions made under the Fourteenth Amendment firmly establish that the equal protection of the law includes the right to equal treatment regardless of race. With the exception of race-conscious college admissions, laws and policies dividing people by race are immediately suspect,” the lawmakers argued.
Legal experts, economists and educational organizations have also submitted amicus briefs to the court, supporting the SFFA and calling for race not to be considered in college admissions.
Among those groups was Parents Defending Education (PDE), a parenting advocacy organization that warned that considering race in college admissions was having adverse effects on K-12 schools. PDE argued that promises made in the Grutter case, including that after 25 years considering race in college admissions would be “no longer necessary”, have not been fulfilled.
Instead, the case “created growing racial discrimination and division that went beyond college admissions to infect K-12 schools nationwide,” they wrote in their brief. PDE argued that as long as universities are able to use race as a factor in college admissions, “K-12 schools will face inexorable pressure to discriminate based on color. skin”.
Other groups like the public interest litigation firm The Liberty Justice Center and the Defense of Freedom Institute have criticized the favoritism shown to favored student groups, which they say ultimately undermined the goals. diversity on campus. Students in the ALDC category—athletes, legacy applicants, applicants on the Dean’s Interest List, and children of faculty or staff—have a head start in the admissions process, which, according to the memoir of the DFI, “casts great doubt on [Harvard’s] claim that its racial preference system treats applicants holistically when considering race.”
The Defense of Freedom Institute also claimed that diversity goals at Harvard and other similar schools are “superficial” and based solely on skin color, ignoring other forms of diversity, such as socio-economic status. economic.
Ancient Ministry of Education officials, who served under Education Secretary Betsey DeVos, criticized existing case law which they say has led to “drastically wavering federal policy directions…it all depends on who sits in the Oval Office.” The brief noted that under the Obama administration, schools were encouraged to adopt race-conscious policies, a practice that was later discouraged under the Trump administration.
These changes in federal guidelines can be confusing for schools, according to the brief, and even pose a threat of losing federal funding in a Civil Rights Office action.
Banners for Harvard Law School fly during the inauguration of Lawrence Bacow as the 29th president of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S., October 5, 2018. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
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“Only this tribunal can address the widespread uncertainty about the legality of the growing use of race in American schools,” the brief states.
The Supreme Court initially agreed to hear the Harvard and UNC cases together, but later reversed course and separated the cases. The Supreme Court is due to hear oral arguments in both cases on Monday. The court is expected to rule on the case in 2023.