Implications of the Supreme Court’s Recent Rulings

After last year’s landmark US Supreme Court ruling banning race-conscious admissions practices at US colleges and universities, a sense of dread settled over many who care about the role of education in racial justice. We anticipated a slew of new legal challenges to practices that promote racial equality in education and the workforce, such as the consideration of socioeconomic status in admissions, college scholarships for specific racial/ethnic groups, and race-conscious affirmative action in hiring. In recent weeks, the court has mitigated some fears by declining to intervene in two cases that might have expanded on last year’s decision. While this is good news in the short term, it raises questions about the longer-term future of school admissions policies.

The first case, Students for Fair Admissions v. US Military Academy at West Point, challenged an exception outlined in the majority opinion when the court ruled for Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) and against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that US military academies were not covered by the rulings and therefore can consider race/ethnicity in admissions decisions “in light of the potentially distinct interests that military academies may present.” Within two months, SFFA filed a lawsuit seeking to bar the use of race/ethnicity in West Point’s admissions process. It also petitioned the Supreme Court to temporarily block the academy’s consideration of race/ethnicity in admissions while the case works its way through the courts — an invitation that the justices declined.

While the court’s refusal to institute a ban is reassuring, the content of the order is concerning: “The record before this Court is underdeveloped, and this order should not be construed as expressing any view on the merits of the constitutional question.” This language suggests that if the case reaches the US Supreme Court, the exception for military academies may not survive.

Recent changes to the admissions policy at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJ) were at issue in the second case, Coalition for TJ v. Fairfax County School Board. In 2020, the prestigious magnet school in Alexandria, Virginia, adopted a holistic admissions policy that considers factors such as socioeconomic status and the neighborhood where an applicant lives. The result was a decrease in the proportion of seats offered to Asian American students and an increase in the proportion offered to Black/African American and Hispanic/Latino students. The Coalition for TJ sued, claiming that the new admissions policy violates the US Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the coalition, prompting the appeal to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court announced in February that it would not take up the TJ case. The majority gave no explanation for its reasoning, but Justice Samuel Alito penned a strongly worded dissent. In it, he interpreted the majority’s stance as suggesting “that intentional racial discrimination is constitutional so long as it is not too severe. This reasoning is indefensible, and it cries out for correction.”

Several chances for the court to issue such a correction are on the horizon. Additional cases focusing on admissions policies at elite US high schools in Maryland, Massachusetts, and New York are currently moving through the courts, and each is an opportunity for the Supreme Court to weigh in on K–12 admissions policies. These cases could have far-reaching implications for practices like the use of socioeconomic status to achieve racial/ethnic diversity, including in postsecondary education.

With these cases pending, our research continues to document substantial and persistent challenges to creating equal opportunity for all racial/ethnic groups. As shown in our recent report Learning and Earning by Degrees, increases in college attainment have yielded monetary gains for every racial/ethnic group, but attainment gaps between groups have barely budged. Our most recent report, Small Towns, Big Opportunities, documents racial/ethnic disparities in access to good jobs in both rural and urban areas. And our forthcoming report, Progress Interrupted, shines a light on the sorting role of postsecondary education in directing students toward very different educational opportunities.

The Supreme Court’s most recent decisions may prompt sighs of relief, but our research shows that now is not the time to take a breather. Policymakers and practitioners have much work to do to ensure truly equal opportunity for students of all racial/ethnic backgrounds.

Dr. Carnevale is the director and research professor at the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. CEW is a research and policy institute within Georgetown’s McCourt School of Public Policy that studies the links among education, career qualifications, and workforce demands.

Thanks to Kathryn Peltier Campbell and Katherine Hazelrigg for editorial feedback; Fan Zhang for graphic design; and Johnna Guillerman and Maryam Noor for publication support.

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