Students for Fair Admissions Files Appeal to U.S. Supreme Court in Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina

ARLINGTON, Va., Nov. 11, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) filed a petition for a writ of certiorari at the U.S. Supreme Court in Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina.

The petition is attached.

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The UNC case is a companion to Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard University, No. 20-1199. Both cases were filed on the same day in 2014.

The Harvard case challenges racial preferences at the nation's oldest private college, and this case challenges racial preferences at the nation's oldest public college. The Harvard case asks this Court to overrule Grutter v. Bollinger and hold that Title VI forbids federal funding recipients from using race in admissions.

This case asks the Court to recognize that, for public schools, the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of racial neutrality compels the same conclusion. Certiorari before judgment is appropriate here for the same reasons it was in Gratz v. Bollinger, the companion case to Grutter that was argued and decided on the same day.

Like Harvard, UNC is devoted to using race indefinitely and at every stage of its admissions process. The district court—after seven years of litigation and an eight-day trial—upheld UNC's system under a version of strict scrutiny that was anything but.

Edward Blum, president of SFFA, said, "It is our hope that the U.S. Supreme Court will grant both the Harvard and the University of North Carolina admissions cases for argument."

Blum added, "Every year, thousands of college applicants have been subjected to unfair and unconstitutional racial classifications and penalties by our nation's most competitive institutions. These polarizing practices—which a significant majority of all Americans oppose— must end as soon as possible."

Blum noted, "If the Supreme Court decides, as it should, to reconsider racial preferences in college admissions, it should consider that question in the context of both a private school and a public school. And it should resolve that question under both Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the U.S. Constitution."

Blum concluded, "The cornerstone of our nation's civil rights laws is the principle that an individual's race should not be used to help or harm them in their life's endeavors. We hope the Supreme Court will use the Harvard and UNC cases to begin the restoration of the colorblind legal covenant that holds together Americans of all races and ethnicities."

Students for Fair Admissions
2200 Wilson Blvd. #103-12
Arlington, VA 22201
[email protected] 
703-505-1922

Contact:
Edward Blum
703-505-1922

SOURCE Students for Fair Admissions