AP Education Writer

The Supreme Court’s ruling on the use of racial preferences in college admissions left many questions unanswered: Is the University of Texas’ admissions policy that uses race as a factor constitutional? And do colleges around the country need to change how they use racial preferences to achieve a diverse student body?


But the ruling was nonetheless significant. On the one hand, it validated earlier court rulings that racial diversity is a “compelling state interest” and that colleges may use racial preferences to achieve it. However, the justices also sent a sharp reminder to higher education. The 7-1 decision, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, showed virtually the entire court believes that colleges must, at the very least, meet a high bar in demonstrating such preferences are absolutely necessary, and that race-neutral methods of enrolling a diverse student body won’t create such a student body on their own.



Q. What was this case about?


The key question is how to resolve sometimes conflicting rights _ the educational right of a college to create a diverse class it believes will benefit all students, versus the equal protection right of students not to face discrimination on the basis of race.

Q. What did the court decide?

A. On the Texas policy, it sent the case back down to a federal appeals court, which previously had sided with the university against Fisher. The Supreme Court said the lower court hadn’t subjected the university’s justification for the preferences to enough scrutiny. A university’s educational judgment and experience can play a role in justifying racial preferences, the court said. But it also said lower courts shouldn’t just take a university’s “good faith” word that racial preferences are educationally necessary, or that such programs have been “narrowly tailored” to achieve their goals.

Rather, the justices ruled, courts must closely evaluate a college’s claims about why it needs to use racial preferences, and why race-neutral alternatives (such as simply giving a boost to low-income students, regardless of race) won’t achieve the diversity they need.

Q. What happens now?


Q. Who won?

A. Both sides will claim something of a victory. Opponents of affirmative action will cheer the court’s sharp reminder that colleges must prove they have tried other alternatives before resorting to racial preferences. Many may now be more vulnerable to lawsuits, which could cause them to use racial preferences less aggressively (you can certainly count lawyers among the winners).

Overall, however, defenders of affirmative action are most relieved. The court upheld the essence of an idea it last articulated in a 2003 case involving the University of Michigan: Diversity is so important in education that it can justify racial preferences _ at least sometimes. “It’s a strong affirmation of the importance of student body diversity in higher education, by a strong majority of the court,” said Marvin Krislov, who was the University of Michigan’s general counsel during the last affirmative action case and is now president of Oberlin College in Ohio.

“Relief is a good word,” said Lee Bollinger, a constitutional scholar and president of Columbia University who previously had warned that the use of affirmative action might be imperiled by this case. He emphasized that the court, in a series of decisions, now has upheld the value of diversity in education and made that value “completely solid constitutional doctrine.”



Many selective schools, however, have been practicing some form of affirmative action since about the early 1970s. Presumably, those schools used race in a manner they believed was consistent with what the Supreme Court allowed in 2003. On Monday, the court didn’t change those standards; it just instructed courts to review more closely what colleges do.

Q. What about in the long run?



