two quick observations about this ruling. number one, when we talk about harvard and unc and these very selective schools, we re talking about choosing a freshman class from a huge pool of qualified applicants. harvard could assemble a perfectly fine, all white freshmen class or all asian freshmen class or all black freshmen class from the pool of qualified applicants. we re not talking about giving a place at harvard to somebody who is not qualified to be there. that s one point. the second point is about justice roberts sort of leaving the door open a crack and saying, well, nothing prohibits discussion of race in the essay, what he was essentially saying. the very next sentence, he kind
board take this ruling? by the way, many expected it to go this way for quite some time now. it means you can t make assumptions about anybody because of their race. that s what the chief justice was stressing. he said, you can t say, well, because this applicant is black or hispanic, you can assume they carry with them certain experiences or obstacles or what have you. he called that stereotypes. he did not rule out, as you say, that if someone has been affected in their own experience by their race, and he described whether it is obstacles overcame or a particular pride they take in it, if it is relevant to their personal experience, they can describe that and schools can consider that in admissions. they can t and this was the term that came up during the oral arguments last year they can t just check the box and look at it as automatically meeting something because an applicant is black or hispanic. jen palmieri, most colleges had been expecting it to go this way based on t
months, are look at all the accomplishments and so on, and still continue to tell pollsters that the fact that joe biden s age, any president in his 80s, gives them pause. i think that s a challenge. hopefully from the biden perspective, hopefully it ll be a soluble challenge, but it does point to how stubborn that view is among a lot of people, including some people on the democratic side. let s start this hour with the landmark decisions, two from the supreme court yesterday, ending race-based affirmative action in the college admissions. the court ruled programs at the university of north carolina and harvard violate the equal protection clause of the constitution. the schools were accused of giving substantial preference to black and hispanic applicants while discriminating against asian-american students. the vote was 6-3 in the north carolina case, with all three of the liberal judges dissenting and 6-2 in the harvard ruling, because justice ketanji brown
this will make it harder to do so. professor greer, we talked a little this morning, and i really want your thoughts about how this particular ruling, that really said race, trying to deal with race in these particular cases has implications in terms of race being a goal to correct past discrimination is unconstitutional. they cited the 14th amendment. i feel in a distorted way. and how this could have impact across more than just the schools and education. it could have impact in business contracts. it could have impact in terms of board seats and other things that those of us in the civil rights community fight for. because you can now cite and say, well, it s unconstitutional to consider race in these areas. talk about that.
brett kavanaugh wrote the ruling would apply to students first starting college in 2028. reverend sharpton, yesterday morning, you and i discussed this. you anticipated this ruling. most people expected it to go this way. you had begun to walk us through some of the follow-on effects from this decision. how are you looking at it this morning? well, i think it was as bad or worse than i had thought. clearly, the court, in my judgment, stuck a dagger in the back of many of us that feel that we need to continue to legally protect people that have had to deal with historic inequities. you must understand, affirmative action started under the nixon administration, written by arthur fletcher. this was a conservative remedy to equalize the fact that blacks by law couldn t go to certain schools. by law, they were enslaved. i mean, we are not talking about a custom here. we re talking about the law said