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Obviously universities will look to get around this, but I don't see a "poison pill" here:
Roberts: "But, despite the dissent's assertion to the contrary, universities may not simply establish through application essays or other means the regime we hold unlawful today."
Doesn't this leave universities open to lawsuits if they attempt to racially balance? The 14th amendment has a strict scrutiny standard.
It probably bar them from explicitly instituting a policy that mentions race. But it won't ban something like "if you come from a community that previously experienced hardship and bigotry, and is under-represented in higher education, you get +100 points", while the determination of the "community" is such that nobody white or Asian would ever qualify.
There is going to be a lot of legal scrutiny for any institution that tries to implement the old system by other means. How does a University actually implement this policy without incriminating texts/emails? A University can't have emails to their admissions officers that "being from a black community is hardship wink" or they'll be violating the Civil Rights of other applicants.
Here's one evasion technique you could use that's very simple and powerful.
"Any racial discrimination is very bad and wrong. We also know that blacks have been discriminated against in the past. Therefore take extra care not to discriminate against BIPOC individuals or risk facing consequences".
Is it illegal to be extra careful against discriminating against a specific race? I think not. And of course, the admissions officer would quickly get the point.
... not sure why I'm giving them ideas.
Admissions offices are ideological, I just don't think they're this suicidal. I don't think this decision is some silver bullet, but any "tinkering" that Universities will do will make them targets for lawsuits. Affirmative action will continue in some form, but it's going to be much more marginal as opposed to a heavy thumb on the scale. There is only so much Universities can accomplish without explicitly using race as a criteria.
I'm pretty cynical, but many posters here are taking it too far. If you're opposed to affirmative action, this is a good day not only for the decision but for the embarrassingly bad arguments put up by Harvard, UNC, and the dissenting justices. It's also a wildly unpopular policy, so the public will back up the decision.
Indeed, for all their attempts to evade the law, the UC system only managed to get the black percentage up to 8% as opposed to 18% at Harvard. Now 8% is probably higher than it would be naturally, but still- that’s more than a 50% reduction in affirmative action.
Right, and with this decision there will be a lot of pressure for UC to become less enthusiastic about skirting the law because it just takes one admissions officer or dean of whatever to say the quiet part out loud in an email.
There’s already a lot of pressure for UC to not skirt the law(it is literally illegal) and they do it anyways.
That's true, but now it's unconstitutional and a violation of Civil Rights.
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