Harvard University and the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill have been sued for racial discrimination in their student-admission policies, according to this press release by Edward Blum’s Project on Fair Representation, and more lawsuits against other schools are promised. The press release also notes, “The plaintiff in both lawsuits — Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) — is a newly-formed, nonprofit, membership organization whose members include highly qualified students recently denied admission to both schools, highly qualified students who plan to apply to both schools, and their parents.”

As our vice president might say, this is a big deal. For years, universities could engage in this kind of politically correct discrimination with great confidence that the chances of their being sued were small, since plaintiffs were so unlikely to materialize. This was especially true when, as now, the U.S. Department of Education had no interest in policing the use of racial preferences. With this new litigation strategy, those days appear to be over. The Harvard lawsuit argues, in particular, that Asians have replaced Jews as a group for which a ceiling is set. It’s also explicit in asking for an end to racial preferences, not just an amelioration of them.