What the US Supreme Court ban on affirmative action...

experience for all students. Schools also employ recruitment programs and scholarship opportunities intended to boost diversity, but the Supreme Court litigation was focused on admissions.

Which schools consider race?

While many schools do not disclose details about their admissions processes, taking race into account is more common among selective schools that turn down most of their applicants.

In a 2019 survey by the National Association for College Admission Counseling, about a quarter of schools said race had a “considerable” or “moderate” influence on admissions, while more than half reported that race played no role whatsoever.

Nine states have banned the use of race in admissions policies at public colleges and universities: Arizona, California, Florida, Idaho, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Washington.

What is the current litigation about?

The Supreme Court decided two cases brought by Students for Fair Admissions, a group headed by Edward Blum, a conservative legal strategist who has spent years fighting affirmative action.

One case contended that Harvard’s admissions policy unlawfully discriminates against Asian American applicants. The other asserted that the University of North Carolina unlawfully discriminates against white and Asian American applicants.

The schools rejected those claims, saying race is determinative in only a small number of cases and that barring the practice would result in a significant drop in the number of minority students on campus.

How has the supreme court ruled in the past?

Before Thursday, the court had largely upheld raceconscious admissions for decades, though not without limits.

A divided Supreme Court took up the issue in the landmark 1978 case, Regents