The United States Supreme Court on Thursday overturned one of the achievements of the civil rights struggle of the 1960s, ending programs used for years to increase the number of African-American, Hispanic and Native American students at American universities. universities.

The six conservative Supreme Court justices ruled — despite the urging of three of their progressive colleagues — unconstitutional university admissions processes that take applicants’ skin color or ethnic origin into account.

By the late 1960s, some universities had adopted racial and ethnic criteria in the admissions process to correct inequities that had arisen from the US’s past racial discrimination and to increase the percentage of African-American, Hispanic, and indigenous students in their student body .

These so-called “affirmative action” policies have been widely criticized in conservative circles, who consider them opaque and “reverse racism”.

The Supreme Court had banned quotas but had always allowed universities to take racial criteria into account, among other things. Until now, the court has deemed it “legitimate” to seek greater diversity in universities.

– “Long day” –

Today, the Supreme Court reversed itself, as it had done on June 24, 2022, invalidating the federal right to abortion, which had been guaranteed since 1973.

The court ruled in the context of a complaint filed in 2014 against the oldest private and public universities in the United States, Harvard and North Carolina, which were accused of discrimination against students of Asian descent.

The latter, who have clearly above-average academic performance, would be far more likely to attend universities if their performance was the only selection criterion, Students for Fair Admission had argued.

The Supreme Court vindicated them, ruling that “despite their good intentions”, the admissions procedures at these universities used “inaccurate” racial categories and racial “stereotypes”.

This 180-degree turn drew cheers from the right. “It’s a big day for America,” “we’re going back to a meritocracy,” Republican former US President Donald Trump, an architect of this turnaround as he profoundly reshaped the Supreme Court during his tenure, wrote on Truth Social.

For his part, Democratic President Joe Biden expressed his “deep disagreement and disappointment” after the court’s decision “departs from decades of case law.” He called on universities not to “abandon” their goal of diversity. “We cannot let the Court have the last word,” he said.