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(Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) By David G. SavageStaff Writer June 29, 2023 Updated 12:09 PM PT * Facebook * Twitter * Show more sharing options ShareClose extra sharing options * Facebook * Twitter * LinkedIn * Email * Copy Link URLCopied! * Print WASHINGTON -- In another major reversal, the Supreme Court on Thursday struck down affirmative action policies at colleges and universities that use race as a factor in deciding who is admitted. In a pair of decisions, the six conservative justices ruled that Harvard, the nation's oldest private college, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the oldest state university, were illegally discriminating based on race and violating the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said the Constitution forbids treating people differently based on their race. Advertisement "The entire point of the Equal Protection Clause is that treating someone differently because of their skin color is not like treating them differently because they are from a city or from a suburb, or because they play the violin poorly or well," he wrote. LOS ANGELES-CA-MARCH 11, 2020: Classes have moved to online only at UCLA on Wednesday, March 11, 2020. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times) California A lot of what you've heard about affirmative action is wrong Debate leading up to the Supreme Court's decision has stirred up plenty of misconceptions. We break down the myths and explain the reality. In dissent, liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson accused the majority of ignoring America's history as well as continuing racism today. "Our country has never been colorblind," Jackson wrote. "Today, this court stands in the way and rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress," Sotomayor wrote, joined by Justice Elena Kagan. "The court cements a superficial rule of colorblindness as a constitutional principle in an endemically segregated society where race has always mattered and continues to matter." While the ruling will force many universities, including their law and medical schools, to change admissions policies, it won't prevent them from pursuing diversity or giving extra consideration to students who have overcome hardships or discrimination. Affirmative action supporters and opponents rally outside the Supreme Court Affirmative action supporters and opponents trade chants outside the Supreme Court on Thursday. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) School officials are likely to focus on a passage near the end of the chief justice's 40-page opinion: "Nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant's discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise," Roberts wrote. "A benefit to a student who overcame racial discrimination, for example, must be tied to that student's courage and determination. Or a benefit to a student whose heritage or culture motivated him or her to assume a leadership role or attain a particular goal must be tied to that student's unique ability to contribute to the university. In other words, the student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual -- not on the basis of race." The vote was 6 to 3 in the North Carolina case and 6 to 2 in the Harvard case, from which Jackson, a former member of Harvard's Board of Overseers, recused herself. Affirmative action, like abortion, has been a target of the conservative legal movement for decades, and the court's liberal precedents on these two major issues were put in danger when President Trump and Senate Republicans succeeded in appointing three new justices. The impact of the rulings is likely to be limited in California, however. The University of California and the California State University systems are prohibited from using race as an admissions factor under ballot measures approved by voters in 1996 and 2020. Eight other states have followed California's lead in forbidding race-conscious admissions policies at state universities, including Michigan, Florida and Washington. But the ruling in the Harvard case extends that prohibition to private universities, including Stanford and USC. Los Angeles, CA - February 08: Scenes around the leafy campus of Occidental College Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2022 in Los Angeles, CA. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) California 'We're really worried.' What do colleges do now after affirmative action ruling? The Supreme Court's ban on affirmative action triggers angst on campuses about how to promote diversity without considering race in admissions decisions. President Biden joined many Democrats and progressives in slamming the majority opinion. "I strongly, strongly disagree with the court's decision," Biden said in remarks at the White House. "Discrimination still exists in America. Today's decision does not change that." He proposed new guidance for colleges in the wake of the decision, urging them to take into account the adversity a student has overcome in the admissions process. "We need a new path forward, a path consistent with the law that protects diversity and expands opportunity," he said. A protester flies a hand-held American flag while Supreme Court of the United States is in the background A protester flies American flag during a rally with other members of the Asian American Coalition for Education outside of the Supreme Court of the United States on Thursday. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) In its opinion, the high court criticized rulings dating to 1978 that held that universities had a compelling interest in seeking racial diversity on campus and could consider the race of Black and Latino students as a plus factor when choosing among well-qualified applicants. Those precedents had remained under challenge from conservatives, who argued that the Constitution and the civil rights law prohibited discrimination based on race, even where the consideration of race was intended to increase diversity and correct past injustices. A group called Students for Fair Admissions, created by financier Edward Blum, accused Harvard of discriminating against Asian American applicants in favor of Black and Latino applicants. He then filed a separate lawsuit against UNC for similar discrimination. Those suits lost in the lower courts. Judges said the two universities had made careful and limited use of race in seeking a diverse class of new students. WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 31: Proponents for affirmative action in higher education rally in front of the U.S. Supreme Court before oral arguments in Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina on October 31, 2022 in Washington, DC. The conservative Supreme Court will hear arguments for the two cases concerning the consideration of race as one factor in college admission at the two elite universities, which will have an effect on most institutions of higher education in the United States. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Opinion Opinion: Affirmative action isn't hurting Asian Americans. Here's why that myth survives The idea that Asian Americans need higher SAT scores than others to get into Harvard is a fallacy based on a misreading of a study that didn't look at other admissions factors. But the Supreme Court, with six conservatives, voted last year to take up the appeals. Blum hailed the outcome as a long-sought victory. The Supreme Court's opinion "marks the beginning of the restoration of the colorblind legal covenant that binds together our multiracial, multiethnic nation," he said. "The polarizing, stigmatizing and unfair jurisprudence that allowed colleges and universities to use a student's race and ethnicity as a factor to admit or reject them has been overruled." Times staff writer Courtney Subramanian in Washington contributed to this report. PoliticsWorld & NationEducation Newsletter Get our Essential Politics newsletter The latest news, analysis and insights from our politics team. Enter email address[ ] Sign Me Up You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. [] David G. Savage Follow Us * Twitter * Instagram * Email * Facebook David G. Savage has covered the Supreme Court and legal issues for the Los Angeles Times in the Washington bureau since 1986. Show Comments More From the Los Angeles Times * WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 27: Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) speaks as people rally in the rain to show support for the Biden administration's student debt relief plan in front of the the Supreme Court of the United States the evening before the court is scheduled to hear arguments about the plan on Monday, Feb. 27, 2023 in Washington, DC. The rally was held on the eve of arguments in Biden v Nebraska and Department of Education v Brown, which could decide the fate of the program that aims to forgive an estimated $400 billion in student debt for 26 million borrowers. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) World & Nation When will the Supreme Court decide the student loan forgiveness case? * FILE - Bishop Henry C. Williams, of Oakland, testifies during the Reparations Task Force meeting in Sacramento, Calif., Wednesday, March 29, 2023. Williams said he hopes to build a Black Wall Street in Oakland with all Black-owned businesses. California's first-in-the-nation reparations task force will sign off Saturday, May 5, 2023, on key recommendations for how the state should apologize and atone for decades of discriminatory policies against descendants of U.S. chattel slavery. (Hector Amezcua/The Sacramento Bee via AP, File) California California's reparations proposal moves to Newsom, state lawmakers * In this Nov. 4, 2020 file photo, The Supreme Court is seen in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) Politics Key quotes from Supreme Court's affirmative action ruling: No to race, yes to discrimination victims * FILE - In this Feb. 23, 2016, file photo, a sign opposing a proposed tunnel plan to ship water through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to Southern California is displayed near Freeport, Calif. The powerful Metropolitan Water District voted Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2017 to pay its share of the $16 billion project to build two massive tunnels to pipe water from Northern California to Southern California cities. 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