Supreme Court strikes down race-based affirmative action in college admissions

WASHINGTON — In another major reversal, the Supreme Court on Thursday struck down affirmative action policies at colleges and universities that use race as a factor in deciding who is admitted.

In a pair of decisions, the six conservative justices ruled that Harvard, the nation's oldest private college, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the oldest state university, were illegally discriminating based on race and violating the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said the Constitution