The Supreme Court of the United States today refused to admit the true legacy of hundreds of years of American racial oppression, from brutal land theft from, and genocide of, Indigenous peoples, to slavery to segregation to current systems designed to perpetuate inequality. In the cases of Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina and Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, the Court effectively ended race-conscious admissions under the false neutrality of “colorblind” policies. It proves too much that this Court denies access to higher education while in the same breath keeps the door open to military academies – proving the undervaluing of Black, Brown, and Indigenous lives.

Justice Jackson in her dissent understood the truth: “Our country has never been colorblind. Given the lengthy history of state-sponsored race-based preferences in America, to say that anyone is now victimized if a college considered whether that legacy of discrimination has unequally advantaged its applicants fails to acknowledge the well-documented ‘intergenerational transmission of inequality’ that still plagues our citizenry.”

Ignoring race will not end racism. NYLPI will continue to work across our programs to achieve justice and dismantle this intergenerational demonstration of state-sanctioned inequality.