The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the admissions policies of Harvard and the University of North Carolina violate the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.

Supreme Court’s decision: The court’s decision reverses decades of precedent and could potentially hinder educational institutions’ abilities to consider race among several factors in admissions decisions.
* This decision concerns affirmative action programs at the University of North Carolina and Harvard University.
* Prior to the 1950s, the University of North Carolina did not admit Black students, and Harvard’s admissions policy served as a model for the court’s 1978 decision permitting colleges to consider race as one of many factors.

Implications of the cases: These two cases intersect because they pose questions about the scope of the 14th Amendment and federal anti-discrimination laws.
* For UNC, as a state school, the case raises the question of whether its affirmative action program infringes upon the equal protection guarantee of the 14th Amendment.
* Even though Harvard is a private institution, federal anti-discrimination laws still apply because the university receives federal funding for numerous programs.

Deep connections: The Harvard case struck a chord with the Justices, five of whom have strong ties to the institution.
* Justice Jackson was recused from the case due to her past role on the Harvard Board of Overseers.
* Four other Justices, including the Chief Justice, either attended Harvard College, Harvard Law School, or both, and Justice Kagan was dean of the law school for six years.

Harvard precedent: The case’s resonance is further amplified due to Harvard’s past history of imposing Jewish quotas in the 1920s to ’40s.
* This history has led the plaintiff’s lawyers to argue that Asians are now being treated similarly to Jews.
* Harvard held a trial that lasted more than two weeks and involved extensive document production and examination of hundreds of thousands of emails.
* However, both the district court judge and the court of appeals found “no evidence” of discrimination against Asian Americans, a fact emphasized by Harvard’s lawyer, Seth Waxman.

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