Commitment to Equal Opportunity?: Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and the Ends-Oriented Constitution
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: In Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College(2023), the United States Supreme Court held that the Equal Protection Clause ofthe Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the use of affirmative action admissionsprograms in higher education. Underlying the Court’s decision was a commitmentto negative constitutionalism, which seeks to restrain the power of government toprotect individuals from government. More specifically, the Court adhered tocolorblind constitutionalism, perceiving any racial classifications in the law, eventhose designed to ameliorate entrenched racial disparities like affirmative action,as unconstitutional. However, the Constitution’s logic is positive — that is, itempowers the government to pursue public goods to bring about and maintain adesirable social state of affairs. One aspect of this desirable social state of affairsis an equal-opportunity society that “lifts artificial weights from all shoulders,”as President Abraham Lincoln contended. Thus, the Court erred in Students forFair Admissions by proscribing affirmative action in higher education, for it is areasonable means to achieve that end. This decision officially terminated aconstitutional commitment to an equal-opportunity society and epitomized theCourt’s fundamental misconception of the Constitution’s normative character.
DOI: 10.7936/wuulr.9074
Author: Zachary Geiger
Institution: University of Notre Dame
Language: English
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W6959213818
FWCI:
Cites:
Cited by:
Related to: