The next chapter in the debate over race in admissions is scheduled to begin in federal court on Monday. Once again, a high-profile college will attempt to refute allegations that its selection process is unlawfully discriminatory.
The case pits the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill against a now-familiar foe of race-conscious admissions programs. It’s been a while since this legal showdown was in the news, so let’s review a bit.
Who Is Suing and Why?
Students for Fair Admissions, an advocacy group known as SFFA, filed a federal lawsuit against UNC, the University of North Carolina system, and UNC’s Board of Governors in 2014. SFFA, which is also challenging Harvard University’s race-conscious policies, alleges that UNC gives “significant racial preferences” to underrepresented minority applicants while ignoring race-neutral alternatives for achieving diversity.
SFFA — founded by Edward J. Blum, a conservative activist — argues that Chapel Hill illegally uses race “at every stage” of the admissions process to exclude white and Asian American applicants in favor of less-qualified Black and Hispanic students. The plaintiff in the UNC case is an unidentified white male from North Carolina who applied for a spot in the university’s 2014 freshman class but was denied. The applicant, according to SFFA’s lawsuit, was unable to compete “on equal footing with other applicants on the basis of race or ethnicity due to UNC-Chapel Hill’s discriminatory admissions policies.”
What Is UNC’s Position?
Chapel Hill argues that the educational benefits of diversity are essential to its educational mission. In their holistic reviews of applicants, UNC contends in a court document, admissions officers may consider race and ethnicity “but only in the context of everything else known about the applicant.”
The Supreme Court has previously stated that race-conscious admissions programs must be narrowly tailored to achieve the educational benefits of diversity. UNC says its practices fit that description: Although a given applicant’s race or ethnicity might be considered a “plus,” it isn’t a dominant factor. The university rejects SFFA’s assertion that its use of race is “mechanized.”
UNC also says it has assessed race-neutral alternatives but concluded that none of them would produce desirable results.
Is This Case Just Like the Harvard Case?
No. The two cases, though similar, are not identical. SFFA’s lawsuit against Harvard hinges on the question of whether the university discriminates against Asian American students. During the Harvard trial, in 2018, SFFA’s lawyers argued that the Ivy League university essentially uses an unlawful quota system to cap the proportion of Asian American students it admits. (A federal district judge ruled in 2019 that the university’s consideration of race in its admissions process was constitutional.)
The UNC case more closely resembles previous legal challenges to race-conscious admissions policies, including Fisher v. University of Texas. In that case, which was also engineered by Blum, a white plaintiff alleged that the university’s Austin campus unlawfully favored Black and Hispanic applicants over others.
What’s at Stake?
The future of race-conscious admissions programs — maybe.
The trial, which will take place in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, will almost certainly mark just one stop on a long road that might lead to the U.S. Supreme Court. Many legal experts expect that both the Harvard and UNC cases will end up there. (The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit is now considering SFFA’s appeal of the federal district judge’s ruling in the Harvard case.)
Fact: Pundits have been predicting the demise of race-conscious admissions for decades. Another fact: The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld the consideration of race as one of many factors in admissions. The most recent example came in 2016, when the high court sided with UT-Austin 4-3 in the Fisher case.
But the ideological balance of the court has changed. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy — who delivered the majority opinion in Fisher and became an unlikely defender of affirmative action — has retired. And Blum, who leads SFFA, seeks to end the use of race in admissions and shows no signs of ending his crusade anytime soon.
