In a momentous ruling on Thursday, Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotomayor presented opposing views on affirmative action, reading their conflicting opinions aloud from the bench.

The rare move by the justices highlights the significance of the case and their desire to draw special attention to their respective positions.

Justice Thomas, in his concurring opinion with the court’s ruling against affirmative action, emphasized the triumph of constitutional principles. “Today, and despite a lengthy interregnum, the Constitution prevails,” he stated.

The 75-year-old justice not only praised the majority opinion overturning decades of judicial allowance for race-based admissions in colleges and universities but also provided his own individual perspective.

Moreover, Thomas offered an originalist defense of the colorblind Constitution, criticized the court’s previous Grutter jurisprudence, asserted that all forms of race-based discrimination, including affirmative action, are prohibited under the Constitution, and underscored the harmful effects of such discrimination.

On the other hand, Justice Sotomayor delivered a dissenting opinion against the majority ruling. Justice Sotomayor was joined by the two other liberal justices, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan. Sotomayor began her dissent by invoking the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which she argued guarantees racial equality. She contended that the court’s decision rolls back decades of precedent and vital progress, asserting that race-conscious measures are necessary in a society that has never been colorblind.

Sotomayor expressed concern that the ruling establishes a superficial rule of colorblindness as a constitutional principle in a society that remains deeply segregated and where race continues to play a significant role.

The 6-3 ruling, which divided the court along traditional lines, stemmed from cases brought by the student activist group Students for Fair Admissions against Harvard and the University of North Carolina. The initial lawsuit against Harvard College, filed in 2014, alleged violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in federally funded programs or activities.

Furthermore, the group accused Harvard of practices that disadvantaged Asian American students and of failing to adopt a neutral admissions processes for all races. The University of North Carolina’s case raised questions about the permissibility of non-race-based admissions practices and their impact on academic quality and campus diversity, according to reports from Fox News. 

Thomas Sowell, a well known scholar, professor, author of dozens of books and conservative activist has talked on this point and wrote a book on affirmative action as well.

Sowell brought up many points arguing for the ruling that came today. One of the points Sowell has stated in the past that “despite sweeping claims made for affirmative action programs, an examination of their actual consequences makes it hard to support those claims, or even to say that these programs have been beneficial on net balance.”

In Sowell’s book, “Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study” he highlights the empirical analysis of the consequences of affirmative action in college admissions.

“Studies have shown that black students admitted to colleges and universities under lower academic standards than other students are far more likely to switch to easier majors, far less likely to graduate, and far more likely to transfer to other schools than black students admitted under the same academic standards as other students,” Sowell wrote.

He added, “This is not something peculiar to blacks, for whites and Asians also tend to switch majors, transfer, and drop out more when they are admitted to schools where their academic credentials are not competitive with those of their fellow students. The bottom line is that admissions policies that ignore the actual qualifications of students and seek to engineer a desired racial or ethnic mix are a disservice to all students, black and non-black alike.”

The ruling marks a significant shift in the interpretation and application of affirmative action policies in higher education. As the debate surrounding race-conscious admissions continues, this decision will undoubtedly have far-reaching implications for colleges, universities, and aspiring students seeking equal opportunities in education.

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