FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Devon Westhill
Monday, January 24, 2022
(904) 683-6060
(Falls Church, VA) Today, the Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari in the consolidated cases of Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. Harvard and SFFA v. UNC as the Center for Equal Opportunity (CEO) urged in the amicus briefs it joined in each case. This means that for the first time in years the Court will review the legality of race preferences in college admissions.
CEO Chairman Linda Chavez said today: “These cases give lie to the notion that racial preferences hurt no one and redound only to the benefit of racial and ethnic minorities. Asian students have been especially harmed by preferences that favor one group over another in the name of diversity. It is time that we end picking winners and losers on the basis of the color of their skin.”
CEO President and General Counsel Devon Westhill said: “The Supreme Court’s decision to grant review of the Harvard and UNC cases is a major win for opponents of race-conscious law and policy. Our country is in a perilous state regarding racial equality. Almost daily, new efforts are launched to treat citizens not as individuals but instead, as members of monolithic racial or ethnic groups upon which benefits and burdens are assigned. The Supreme Court’s likeliness to reign-in race preferences in college admissions—as a practice that has proven in study after study after study to cause grievous harm to college applicants of every racial and ethnic background—can serve as a major pivot back toward colorblind equal opportunity. CEO looks forward to making the case in the court of public opinion—as it has done in the court of law—that the Court should outlaw the harmful practice known as affirmative action and uphold the American principle of equality under the law.”
CEO has been an outspoken opponent of the use of race preferences in higher education for over 25 years. CEO has been involved in affirmative action cases, including both Harvard and UNC, for years by joining and helping write multiple briefs before the Supreme Court and the courts of appeal. Those briefs emphasized the many studies that CEO has done over the years, documenting the heavy weight schools give to race and ethnicity in their admissions.
The Center for Equal Opportunity is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and educational organization that studies issues relating to race and ethnicity nationwide.
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7700 Leesburg Pike, Suite 231 • Falls Church, VA 22043 • (703) 442-0066 • www.ceousa.org
