NewsNation Now

The Supreme Court ended affirmative action. Read the full opinion

Students walk through the Harvard Law School area on the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., on Nov. 19, 2002. The University of California, Berkeley's law school on Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022, joined the law programs at Harvard and Yale in pulling out of U.S. News & World Report rankings over concerns that the rating system punishes efforts to attract students from a broad range of backgrounds. (AP Photo/Chitose Suzuki, File)

(NewsNation) — The Supreme Court has ruled against affirmative action in college admissions, as the Court ruled against admissions policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina.

The justices were split along ideological lines with Chief Justice John Roberts writing the opinion. The six conservative justices on the bench ruled against the use of race when considering college admissions, saying the policy violates the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.

While the Court ruled against the use of race as a stand-alone factor in college admissions, the opinion did note that the impact of race on a particular student’s experiences could be considered.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented in the case, while Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson recused herself from the case.

In her dissent, Sotomayor wrote the ruling entrenches racial inequality in education and applied a “superficial rule of colorblindness” in a society where race still matters.

Read the full ruling here: