Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard

Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard is a 2023 US Supreme Court decision, consolidated with a companion case against the University of North Carolina, that held race-based affirmative action in college admissions violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, overturning decades of precedent that had permitted limited consideration of race. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts held that universities may not use race as a specific basis for an admissions decision, though an applicant may still discuss how race shaped their own individual experience if tied to a quality of character or unique ability they would bring. Dissenting, Justice Sonia Sotomayor argued that ignoring race will not equalize a society that is racially unequal, and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life.