Affirmative Action For Colleges Is On The Chopping Block

The Supreme Court will hear arguments in landmark cases that could end affirmative action in university admissions.

Two cases that could end decades of racial affirmative action in higher education will be heard by the United States Supreme Court on.

UNC ( University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and Harvard University are accused of discriminating against Asian Americans — and, in the case of UNC, whites in admissions by taking race into account.

Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) has filed a lawsuit against each university, one public and one private, and will petition the Supreme Court to eliminate affirmative action in college admissions. The decision is anticipated to be made next year. Legal analysts believe the Court will overrule Grutter v. Bollinger, a prior case that ended race-based university admissions.

According to Margot Cleveland, a former law professor and permanent legal clerk to a federal appellate judge, the Court is likely to overrule another bad decision.

When the Court issues its opinion, which will most likely take six months or more, Cleveland told Fox News Digital, the majority will almost certainly adopt Chief Justice John Roberts’ position in a 2007 case, when he wrote: The only way to stop discrimination based on race is to actually stop discriminating based on race.

The landmark case on university admissions was resolved in 2003 in a 5-4 ruling that determined affirmative action is allowed as long as it is meant to produce an educational benefit via having a diverse body. In the majority decision, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor stated that she expects that 25 years from now, the employment of racial preferences will no longer be essential to promote the purpose affirmed today.

Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University Law School professor, said O’Connor might only be a few years off in her prediction. He believes the decades-long debate over affirmative action for colleges is nearing an end.

Turley told Fox News Digital the two cases might provide the Court with a bright-line rule it has long lacked due to their deep differences. SFFA first sued Harvard in 2014. Lower courts decided against the institution but were eventually overturned by a Boston district court, which determined that the claimed prejudice only affected a small number of students.

The facts of the case, according to former Assistant US Attorney Andrew McCarthy, are: the institutions accepted government funds while discriminating against a certain race.

It is illegal for institutions to discriminate based on race, period, McCarthy told Fox News Digital. The sadness is that the Supreme Court ever declared anything different, and the justices must correct this.