US

Supreme Court bans race-based college admission

WASHINGTON—The US Supreme Court on Thursday banned the use of race and ethnicity in university admissions, dealing a major blow to a decades-old practice that boosted educational opportunities for AfricanAmericans and other minorities.

One year after overturning the guarantee of a woman’s right to have an abortion, the court’s conservative majority again demonstrated its readiness to scrap liberal policies set in law since the 1960s.

The ruling against “affirmative action,” delivered by a court heavily influenced by three justices appointed by Donald Trump during his presidency, drew cheers from conservatives but was blasted by progressives.

President Joe Biden expressed his “severe disappointment,” and criticized the justices as “not a normal court.”

“Discrimination still exists in America,” he said at the White House. “I believe our colleges are stronger when they are racially diverse.”

However, in an interview with MSNBC he pushed back on liberal demands to reorganize the powerful Supreme Court, including by adding to the nine justices, all of whom serve lifetime appointments.

“That may do too much harm,” he said. “If we start the process of trying to expand the court, we’re going to politicize it maybe forever in a way that’s not healthy.”

‘Not on the basis of race’

The justices broke six to three along conservative-liberal lines in the decision, seen as a heavy defeat to efforts to expand diversity in school admissions and business and government hiring. AFP

The nighttime unrest followed a march earlier on Thursday in memory of the 17-year-old, named Nahel, whose death has revived longstanding grievances about policing and racial profiling in France’s low-income and multiethnic suburbs.

An internal security note indicated authorities were expecting a “theatre of urban violence”, with around 40,000 police and gendarmes—along with elite Raid and GIGN units—deployed in several cities.

At least three cities around Paris had issued curfews, while bans on public gatherings were instated and helicopters and drones mobilised in the neighbouring cities of Lille and Tourcoing in the country’s north.

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Despite the massive security deployment, violence and damage were reported in multiple areas. As of around 3:00 am (0100 GMT) on Friday, at least 421 people had been arrested across the country over the course of the night, according to the team of Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin.

“There aren’t any very violent confrontations in direct contact with the police, but there are a number of vandalised stores, looted or even burned

France has been rocked by successive nights of protests since Nahel was shot point-blank on Tuesday during a traffic stop captured on video.

In her first media interview since the shooting, Nahel’s mother, Mounia, told the France 5 channel: “I don’t blame the police, I blame one person: the one who took the life of my son.”

She said the 38-year-old officer responsible, who was detained and charged with voluntary manslaughter on Thursday, “saw an Arab face, a little kid, and wanted to take his life”. AFP