Following its recent agreement to hear testimony in a case that could abolish abortion rights protected in the historic 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to take on another case that could undo decades of legal precedent. The topic under fire in this latest case? Affirmative action in college and university admissions.
NPR’s Nina Totenberg and Eric Singerman reported that on Jan. 24, the Supreme Court said, “it will revisit the question of affirmative action in higher education, deciding to hear cases challenging the use of race as one factor in admissions at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina.”
Totenberg and Singerman said the Supreme Court will look into the details of how the schools conduct their affirmative action programs while also reexamining “43 years of precedent by asking whether race can ever play a role in admissions.”
The cases against Harvard and UNC’s admission policies were initially filed in 2014 by a conservative activist group known as Students for Fair Admissions. Edward Blum, leader of the group, originally began his suits against the schools wi