Supreme Court & Affirmative Action: Equality under Law at Stake

‘The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

So wrote Chief Justice John Roberts in a 2007 affirmative-action case. Roberts couldn’t get a majority to agree back then, as Justice Anthony Kennedy, the fifth vote in the case, refused to join that part of the opinion. But on Monday, the Supreme Court gave him another chance to get that fifth vote: The justices accepted and consolidated two affirmative-action cases — one regarding Harvard University and the other the University of North Carolina.

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Adam M. Carrington

Adam M. Carrington is an associate professor of politics at Hillsdale College.

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‘The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

So wrote Chief Justice John Roberts in a 2007 affirmative-action case. Roberts couldn’t get a majority to agree back then, as Justice Anthony Kennedy, the fifth vote in the case, refused to join that part of the opinion. But on Monday, the Supreme Court gave him another chance to get that fifth vote: The justices accepted and consolidated two affirmative-action cases — one regarding Harvard University and the other the University of North Carolina.