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The survival of affirmative action in higher education appeared to be in serious trouble on Monday at a conservative-dominated US supreme court after hours of debate over difficult questions of race.
The court is weighing challenges to admissions programs at the University of North Carolina and Harvard University that use race among many factors in seeking a diverse student body.
The court’s six conservative justices all expressed doubts about the practice, while the three liberals defended the programs, which are similar to those used by many other private and public universities.
Following the overturning of the half-century abortion precedent of Roe v Wade in June, the cases offer a big new test of whether the court, now dominated 6-3 by conservatives, will jolt the law to the right on another of the nation’s most contentious cultural issues.
Veteran conservative Clarence Thomas, the court’s second-ever Black justice, who has a long record of opposition to affirmative action programs, noted he didn’t go to racially diverse schools. “I’ve heard the word ‘diversity’ quite a few times, and I don’t have a clue what it means,” he said at one point on Monday. At another, he challenged defenders: “Tell me what the educational benefits are.”
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, another ultra-conservative, pointed to one of the court’s previous affirmative action cases and said it anticipated a halt to its use in declaring that it was “dangerous” and had to have an end point.
