Will the Supreme Court overrule Grutter v. Bollinger and hold that institutions of higher education cannot use race as a factor in admissions?

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resolved Jun 30

Resolved

YES

ALL

Note on resolution timing: I'll close this market once it's clear the court has issued an opinion. Then give me a day to resolve. It should be pretty obvious after a day with headlines breaking down the decision, and I don't want to resolve solely on my own reading of the opinion immediately since I'm not a lawyer.

Current Supreme Court guidance for race based admissions allow for policies to benefit minorities as long as other individual factors are considered. Racial quotas have been banned since Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978). In Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote "race-conscious admissions policies must be limited in time," adding that the "Court expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today." In the fall term, the court is expected to hear arguments in Students for Fair Admissions vs President & Fellows of Harvard College, see https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/students-for-fair-admissions-inc-v-president-fellows-of-harvard-college/ This market will resolve to "Yes" if the Court rules race based factors in admissions to higher education to be entirely unconstitutional, overruling Grutter v. Bollinger. Jul 2, 1:46pm: Adding "affirmative action" to this description to make this easier to search.

Jul 14, 10:37pm: Clarification: this resolves as NO if the Court strikes down the admissions policies as implemented, but allows race as a factor in admissions in limited cases. A YES resolution is reserved for a ruling that broadly bans race as a factor at all.

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predictedYES

I will be resolving this as YES, since the court's opinion is that universities cannot use race as a factor in admissions, which means that the finding in Grutter v Bollinger that race can be a factor is no longer true.
My biggest source of confusion is I updated the market a year ago with a note that if the court strikes down the policies as implemented but allows consideration of race in other ways, I should resolve NO. The court did rule that military academies can continue to take race into account, but my decision is that since the vast majority of institutions of higher learning are now not allowed to take race into account at all, I will resolve YES.
I should try to be more careful about adding to the description after the fact in the future to be very clear.
Citing in particular for this decision is the SCOTUSblog article https://www.scotusblog.com/2023/06/supreme-court-strikes-down-affirmative-action-programs-in-college-admissions/

Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action programs in college admissions - SCOTUSblog

This article was updated on June 29 at 4:09 p.m. In a historic decision, the Supreme Court severely limited, if not effectively ended, the use of affirmative action in college admissions on Thursday. By a vote of 6-3, the justices ruled that the admissions programs used by the University of North C

predictedNO

It's not obvious that they overturned Grutter.

@NicoDelon Just from reading the sylllabus I don’t think they did, but many will feel from the general vibe that they did.

predictedYES

lol it is a 237 page opinion, https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_hgdj.pdf

Arbitrage

predictedYES

Not guaranteed, but looking like they will probably get rid of race as factor https://www.economist.com/united-states/2022/11/01/the-supreme-court-seems-ready-to-toss-out-affirmative-action

Kalshi @ 79%

And 96% that plaintiffs win.

https://kalshi.com/events/SFFA/markets/SFFA-COMPLETE

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Will note that if implemented basically no black students qualify for the top three law schools.

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LFG https://twitter.com/zerohedge/status/1554857110600654853

predictedNO

Most likely outcome is still saying race is permissible to consider when narrowly tailored to a compelling interest (9-0 last time. And only Thomas is based enough to attempt to vote otherwise). They gave away the game in their cert. notes: “Is Harvard […] engaging in racial balancing, overemphasizing race, and rejecting workable race-neutral alternatives?” Basically, yes, it’s constitutional to consider race in individual cases, but that the current systems are a de facto points system (as all the charts and stats conclusively prove)

In that decision, they said that in 25 years, affirmative action would no longer be needed. O'Connor was the median justice back then; now it's Kavanaugh. The decision was 19 years ago (close to the 25 year mark from the original decision).

Voting no based on This market will resolve to "Yes" if the Court rules race based factors in admissions to higher education to be ***entirely unconstitutional***, overruling Grutter v. Bollinger. (They will not hold this.)

Easy route is to say this is a de facto points / quota system (it is, one worth 10-15% higher test scores, ~0.3-0.4 GPA points, and a full standard deviation of ability for some, and penalties for others) and strike it down, without having to go as far as above.

Note that Rehnquist agreed it was constitutional (9-0 on that point); he just though the current system is a total lie, which it still is: Chief Justice Rehnquist, with whom Justice Scalia, Justice Kennedy, and Justice Thomas join, dissenting. “I agree with the Court that, “in the limited circumstance when drawing racial distinctions is permissible,” the government must ensure that its means are narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling state interest…. I do not believe, however, that the University of Michigan Law School’s (Law School) means are narrowly tailored to the interest it asserts. The Law School claims it must take the steps it does to achieve a “ ‘critical mass’ ” of underrepresented minority students. Brief for Respondents Bollinger et al. 13. But its actual program bears no relation to this asserted goal. Stripped of its “critical mass” veil, the Law School’s program is revealed as a naked effort to achieve racial balancing.”

predictedNO

And a reminder that Univ. of Michigan (in Grutter) was a *public* school. And thus falls under the Equal Protection Clause as a government entity. Nothing in the constitution applies to a private university—and the conservative justices aren’t exactly looking to say that it does. Their grounds for granting cert on Harvard were “Is Harvard violating Title VI by penalizing Asian-American applicants, engaging in racial balancing, overemphasizing race, and rejecting workable race-neutral alternatives?” Expect a narrow ruling that says the test set out in Grutter has been violated, Harvard is violating the Civil Rights Act, diversity is a compelling interest, but the universities are way over the line in catering to it.

predictedYES

@Gigacasting hmm I meant to capture that petitioners win on the question of race as a factor in admissions. How else would that be phrased?

@wilsonkime There are two issues in the case: https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/students-for-fair-admissions-inc-v-president-fellows-of-harvard-college/ This market, per the description, speaks to the first issue. You could make a separate market for "whether Harvard College is violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by penalizing Asian American applicants, engaging in racial balancing, overemphasizing race and rejecting workable race-neutral alternatives."

predictedNO

@wilsonkime worth writing in the description “this resolves as NO if the Court strikes down the admissions policies as implemented, but allows race as a factor in admissions in limited cases”

predictedYES

@Gigacasting yeah that's a good way to put it.

One of the worst-reasoned decisions of all time. She spent half the decision quoting ridiculous claims from the briefs about “cross-racial understanding” and how “diversity” (in reality, admitting mostly upper middle class kids of other races) makes discussion “more enlightening and interesting” Somehow admitting unqualified candidates as a sort of zoo animal on display is a compelling because it might “break down racial stereotypes” (hint: it does the opposite, as the diversity admits dominate the bottom of the class) The infamous “We take the Law School at its word that it….will terminate its race-conscious admissions program as soon as practicable.” (And the ridiculous “twenty-five years” claim). She was wrong on every count and it’s a running joke how vast the gaps are in admission standards: often a full standard deviation, with what would be horribly unqualified ~5% admit rate numbers for whites/Asians magically being good enough for admission by other groups. To be fair, the Court should (and probably will) hold that this violates federal law, and not the Constitution. Easy route, just make Congress repeal the (mostly unconstitutional) civil rights laws that on their face ban affirmative action.

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