No One Knows What ‘Race Neutral’ Admissions Looks Like

Later this month, the Court is set to decide a pair of cases in which the plaintiffs, members of a group called Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA), allege that Harvard’s and the University of North Carolina’s “race conscious” admissions amount to racial discrimination in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal-protection clause. If, as expected, the Court sides with SFFA to overrule its 2003 opinion Grutter v. Bollinger and hold that universities are obliged to conduct “race neutral” admissions, what, exactly, will this new interpretation of the law demand?

Both the briefs and the October oral arguments featured extensive discussion of race-conscious versus race-neutral admissions. SFFA claims that the law requires universities to attempt, if not exhaust, race-neutral admissions practices in pursuit of racial diversity before engaging race-conscious policies, and that it may be categorically impermissible to engage in race-conscious admissions at all. But even some Supreme Court justices seemed to recognize that it is not clear what race-neutral or race-conscious means. When, in SFFA’s or the justices’ view, do practices cross the line from being race neutral into being unconstitutionally race conscious?

[Drew Gilpin Faust: The blindness of ‘color-blindness’]

This soon won’t be an abstract question. University administrators will need to establish new admissions practices in light of the Court’s decision. Unless the Court explains what it takes for a practice to count as race neutral, those administrators are going to have to figure it out for themselves. The answer to this question could have repercussions beyond