US President Joe Biden on Thursday voiced his displeasure with the Supreme Court’s ruling against affirmative action in college admissions, stressing the importance of further exploration and not accepting this decision as final.
‘While the court can render a decision, it cannot change what America stands for,’ Biden said at the White House.
In cases involving Harvard College and the University of North Carolina, the court’s ruling underscored a clear ideological split, as the conservative majority declared that the use of race as a factor in admissions runs counter to the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
In response to the court’s decision, President Biden expressed strong disagreement, CBS News reported. He used the phrase ‘strongly, strongly’ to underscore the intensity of his disagreement.
‘For 45 years, the United States Supreme Court has recognized colleges’ freedom to decide how to build diverse student bodies and to meet their responsibility of opening doors of opportunity for every single American,’ the president noted.
‘In case after case … the court has affirmed and reaffirmed this view — that colleges could use race, not as a determining factor for admission, but as one of the factors among many in deciding who to admit from an already qualified pool of applicants. Today, the court once again walked away from decades of precedent, as the dissent has made clear.’
As a long-time advocate of affirmative action, President Biden’s administration actively urged the Supreme Court to reject Harvard’s case. He stressed the importance of schools continuing to prioritize diversity and issued ‘guidance’ to help colleges and universities navigate the shifting legal landscape.
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‘They should not abandon their commitment to ensure student bodies of diverse backgrounds and experience that reflect all of America,’ Biden noted.
‘What I propose for consideration is a new standard, where colleges take into account the adversity a student has overcome when selecting among qualified applicants. Let’s be clear, under this new standard, just as was true under the earlier standard, students first have to be qualified applicants.’
In his remarks, President Biden noted that the incorporation of the ‘adversity’ standard would conform to Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority opinion, as he noted.
‘[The students] need the GPA and test scores to meet the school’s standards,’ the president said. ‘Once that test is met, then adversity should be considered, including students’ lack of financial means, because we know too few students of low-income families, whether in big cities or rural communities, are getting an opportunity to go to college.’
Biden made it known that he is directing the Department of Education to undertake a review aimed at identifying practices that facilitate the establishment of inclusive student bodies, as well as practices that hinder progress in that regard.
‘Practices like legacy admissions and other systems expand privilege instead of opportunity,’ he noted.
President Biden empathized with the disappointment felt by numerous people, including himself, in response to Thursday’s court decision.
‘But we cannot let the decision be a permanent setback for the country,’ he added.
President Biden, while leaving, did not directly label the court as a ‘rogue court,’ but instead emphasised the need for further exploration and not accepting the decision as final.
