Tar Heels react to historic Supreme Court ruling in UNC Chapel Hill admissions case

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision released today in a case challenging UNC Chapel Hill’s consideration of a student’s race in admissions will have historic consequences for higher education nationwide.

The decision will limit admissions officers from treating an applicant's race as a plus factor for acceptance. Before this ruling, colleges were not allowed to have racial quotas or award points to minority applicants, but they could look on a student’s race favorably as part of a holistic view of their application.

Because the opinion involves cases against both UNC Chapel Hill and Harvard College, it will apply to all public and private colleges and universities nationwide. In North Carolina, the decision will particularly affect selective universities like Davidson College, Duke University, UNC Chapel Hill and Wake Forest University.

Following the court's ruling, UNC Chapel Hill leaders, faculty members and students reacted to the decision and considered how it would shape the student population.

In an email to the campus community, UNC Chapel Hill Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz wrote, "while not the outcome we hoped for, we respect the Supreme Court’s decision and will follow its guidance."

Guskiewicz said the school's leadership team would take time to thoroughly review the court's decision, but that they "have been preparing for any outcome."

Civil rights advocates expressed disagreement with the decision.

“This is not a good day,” said civil rights attorney Ted Shaw, a law professor at UNC Chapel Hill. “In fact I would describe it as one of the – another one of the – many historical betrayals over the centuries now by the Supreme Court when it comes to the interests and the status of African-Americans.”

This lawsuit began in 2014 when the legal advocacy group Students For Fair Admissions (SFFA) sued UNC Chapel Hill, arguing the university gives too much consideration to an applicant’s race, at the expense of white and Asian applicants.

Liz Schlemmer

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WUNC

At UNC, Asian American students were at the forefront of activism to promote race conscious admissions and raise awareness of the case on campus. Sarah Zhang is a founding member of the student group UNC for Affirmative Action.

“Our core belief is that higher access to higher education is necessary for social mobility and for access to success in this country,” Zhang said. “To have this affirmative action decision and having race conscious admissions overturned is really frustrating.”

As the decision was released, she and fellow student activists braced for the news and began preparing for their response. She says they expected the decision, given the conservative swing on the Court and comments justices made during oral arguments.

“So it doesn't really come as a surprise, and because I've been kind of like steeling myself and preparing myself for this moment for so long, it's just kind of like acceptance but mostly defiance and anger and being ready to fight on and persevere in this battle.”

Harrington Shaw, a rising senior at UNC, identifies as a libertarian and a free speech advocate. He founded the Student Free Speech Alliance at UNC Chapel Hill. He said he’s “cautiously optimistic” about what the decision will mean for college campuses.

“I hope that universities see this decision as almost an opportunity to look beyond the racial checkbox, and really dive into different types of diversity to recruit different people for the classes that allow us to get different perspectives at the table,” Shaw said.

“I think that considering [an applicant’s] individual experiences, including experiences with race, could even lead to more egalitarian practices,” he said.

Several UNC Chapel Hill alumni – who were students when the case began – also gave testimony in court to demonstrate how their race or ethnicity played a role in their application and experiences on campus. Andrew Brennen was one of them.

When reached for comment after the decision was released, Brennen said he thinks the decision means civil rights advocates and students should continue organizing to make sure college and university leaders do the most to ensure diversity on their campuses.

“I know that there's been a lot of coverage so far declaring the end of race conscious admissions, but that is not my interpretation of the decision,” Brennen said.

Brennen pointed to a final paragraph in the decision.

“Today's decision threatens to make higher education less accessible, less equitable, less attainable for students of color, but I want folks to take note of a passage in the final paragraphs of the majority opinion that says, ‘Nothing, in this opinion, should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant's discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.’”

“I think that passage speaks to the testimony that students of color provided throughout the cases, which is that our racial identities are inextricably linked to the contributions that we can make on a college campus and that it is not possible to holistically evaluate a person of color’s qualifications for admission in a race blind way when we live in a society where race matters,” Brennen said.

Universities, officials across the region react

UNC officials did not immediately respond to WUNC's request for comment on how the decision might affect its admissions policies, but the Board of Trustees released a brief statement.

“On behalf of the people of our state, we will work with the administration to ensure that the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill complies fully with today's ruling from the nation’s highest court. We intend for America's oldest public university to keep leading," Board of Trustees Chair David L. Boliek Jr. said in a statement.

Other state officials also responded to the ruling.

The court’s 6-3 decision was roundly condemned and criticized by Democrats in North Carolina and across the nation. In a statement, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper – a Democrat and alumnus of UNC Chapel Hill – said the decision “undermines decades of progress made across the country to reduce systemic discrimination and promote diversity on campuses which is an important part of a quality education.”

Meanwhile the ruling was applauded by many Republicans. Virginia Foxx – the Congresswoman who has long represented North Carolina’s Fifth District – called it a “welcome victory” and added: “In America, fairness is the key to educational opportunity, where one’s success is judged by merit rather than arbitrary quotas.”

How UNC Chapel Hill became the center of a landmark decision

No applicants who had been denied admission to UNC Chapel Hill sued the university or gave testimony in the case, but SFFA says it represents 20,000 members who want admissions practices nationwide to be colorblind.

“The mission of this organization is to end the use of race and ethnicity in college admissions,” said SFFA founder Edward Blum.

Blum says he singled out UNC Chapel Hill because the university filed a brief in support of University of Texas at Austin in a prior case that also went before the Supreme Court in 2016. That time, with different membership, justices upheld that race could be considered in admissions in a limited way.

At the time, UNC argued in its brief that the university had considered a race-neutral method of admitting students across the state whose grades put them in a certain top percentage of their high school class, but university officials found that would have lowered the average SAT/ACT test scores of its admitted class.

“Most people think that that's a pretty poor reason to continue using race based affirmative action, and that is why UNC was targeted,” Blum said.

“It's going to be up to each college individually to determine what their admissions policies are like,” Blum said about the decision. “The one thing they will not have any latitude on, we hope, is the use of race and ethnicity as a factor.”

Digital Producer Mitch Northam contributed to this report.