Supreme Court to Hear College Admission Affirmative Action Case in October [the ultimate affirmative action is the System of Racism/White Supremacy]

From [HERE] The nation’s highest court will hear arguments on whether current admission practices’ at some of the most elite universities in the country are unconstitutional.

If and after the plaintiff is successful, and the Supreme Court endorses its position, millions of incoming college students may find that their race and ethnicity are no longer a part of the credentials that they use to compete with their peers to get into their dream schools.

Current admission practices at universities like Harvard University treat White and Asian-American students with stricter admission standards—a practice some call reverse discrimination—Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) alleges in its case against Harvard, currently before the Supreme Court.

The plaintiff is also seeking to overturn Grutter v. Bollinger, a 2003 Supreme Court decision that ruled the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause does not prohibit American colleges from using race as a factor in admitting students.

An impressive list of supporters has stood behind Harvard University, including legal institutes, U.S. lawmakers, and even the United States Department of Justice’s top lawyer who’s a Harvard Law graduate herself, Solicitor-General Elizabeth Prelogar. Non-profit organizations and state attorney generals have backed SFFA by submitting amicus briefs.

The Supreme Court will hear the arguments for the case starting Oct. 31, according to a case calendar the court released on Wednesday.

The Supreme Court consolidated the Harvard case with a separate case in which SFFA sued the University of North Carolina.

Race in Admissions

The plaintiff argues that Grutter was “grievously wrong,” in that it “departs from the Constitution’s original meaning, contradicts other precedents, has eroded over time, and has no true defenders.”

“The Amendment, according to its framers, enshrines the principle that ‘free government demands the abolition of all distinctions founded on color and race,’” the plaintiff said, citing the Fourteenth Amendment. “That principle was not new: the self-evident truth that ‘all men are created equal’ was a cornerstone of the American founding.”

Yet, according to the SFFA, “Harvard uses race at every stage of the admissions process.”

“To begin, Harvard recruits high-school students differently based on race,” the plaintiff wrote. “African-American and Hispanic students with PSAT scores of 1100 and up are invited to apply to Harvard, but white and Asian-American students must score a 1350.”

“As admissions decisions are made, Harvard monitors the racial makeup of each class through ‘onepagers,’” the plaintiffs added, alleging that Harvard monitors its racial makeup with “meticulous attention” and has kept it “remarkably stable” across incoming classes.

The plaintiff further claims that Harvard gives “substantial” preferences for African-American and Hispanic applicants in its admissions.

“For example, an Asian American in the fourth-lowest decile has virtually no chance of being admitted to Harvard (0.9%); but an African American in that decile has a higher chance of admission (12.8%) than an Asian American in the top decile (12.7%),” the plaintiff’s petition reads.

Harvard, in its response (pdf), says SFFA’s petition offers a “thoroughly distorted presentation of the record” from lower courts. Harvard rejects the SFFA’s contention that the college “‘automatically’ awards ‘enormous’ preferences to all African and Hispanic applications,” and says that it factors in the race of an applicant in the admissions process “only in a flexible and nonmechanical way.”

The plaintiff further called for the overturning of Grutter, saying the case’s holding “that universities can use race in admissions to pursue student-body diversity” satisfies all the criteria that this Court considers when overruling precedents.”

“Despite reaffirming that ‘all’ racial classifications must satisfy strict scrutiny, Grutter held that ‘student body diversity’ can ‘justify the use of race in university admissions,’” the plaintiffs wrote. “That holding departs from the Constitution’s original meaning, contradicts other precedents, has eroded over time, and has no true defenders.”

“Grutter’s diversity rationale is not only uncompelling; it flouts basic equal-protection principles,” the plaintiff added. “Although Grutter praised the ‘educational benefits’ of student body diversity writ large, its assumption that a university can predict, based solely on race, an applicant’s ‘views’ or ‘experience[s]’ is little more than racial stereotyping.” [MORE]