justice clarence thomas the conservative, long wanting to overturn precedent. he said he understands the background here, but he thinks everybody should be treated equally. justice jackson on her first term on this court, she really pushed back on what he said. remember, the schools here said, look, we want diversity, we think that schools are a pipeline to society, that s why it s important. and on the other side you had this conservative group that had been fighting this for years, coming up with a victory. and they said this amounts to racial discrimination, and today they won. some very strong language on both the concurring opinions and the dissenting ones. thank you so much. let s bring in cnn legal analyst joey jackson now. joey, thank you so much for being with us. what is this going to mean for admission offices when they go to work tomorrow? yeah, i think it s a very
attacking precedent, it s undermining the rule of law. sometimes a court gets it wrong. dred scott was a precedent of the supreme court. plessy vs. ferguson which upheld segregation was a precedent of the court. those were both wrong because they deviated from the constitution s core principle that the government cannot take account of its citizens based on their skin color. that doesn t mean you can t take socio-economic class into account, geography into account, educational background into account when you make admissions decisions. but schools and universities are now going to have to be like the rest of the government and not look at your skin color. people can still talk in their personal statements, of course, about their experience when it comes to racism or it comes to heritage. but you mentioned right now how things stand. i mean, there s still you know comparatively speaking a lack of hispanic representation at cal. and as you re well aware after prop 209, there was a gian
country, not equal opportunity. it is not everywhere across this country. we cannot let this decision be the last word. our supreme court reporter is back with us. the supreme court look at affirmative action in 2015, in 2003, all the way back to 1978. today s decision markedly different, and it comes with some very heated opinions. yeah, absolutely. court really effectively saying that colleges and universities can no longer take race into consideration, overturning decades old precedent, precedent that helped blacks and hispanics in this area. this opinion, as you said, it was 6-3, divided along ideological lines. chief justice john roberts, who has long been a critics of race-conscious programs, he wrote the major opinion here. he said invalidating the plans, he said the harvard and unc admissions programs cannot be
energy. 99% of the citizens that live in broward county, a county of two million, have no idea what happens when you re actually selected on a jury and you actually serve through the process. but now you all know. and i know most people don t say thank you, but i will say thank you because i know the time, effort, and energy that went into this. i have a thank you letter and certificate i m going to give to the court deputy who s going to pass that out when they walk you out it has your names on them. the reason i normally do this in person in the courtroom, but i m not going to do it today, is because i m not and have not addressed you by your names. that s why we use the numbers in care of your privacy. day also want to let you know i will be entering an order today that instructs the clerk of court, the trial court administrator, as well as both parties not to disclose your names, okay. so the only way your names are going to be disclosed is if you choose and you certainly may choos
that s in fact what west point and annapolis and the air force academy are doing. what the court said here was the fundamental principle of the constitution is colorblind. we have over time the court says allowed exceptions like dred scott, like plessy, and they ve said we have always been wrong, and we have done disastrous things for the country. so they are trying to create a harmony in the principle. so i think they re going to go through issue by issue, remove race wherever it s used by the government, including ultimately the service academies. i don t think the service academies are going to do it anymore. should legacy admissions be banned? again, court doesn t touch any other criteria for admissions other than race. personally i would not be in favor of legacy admissions, and they don t work we don t count them here at the university of california. schools can do that if they want. they can also allow more poor people than rich people to come in. the court just says racia