People walk through the gate on Harvard Yard at the Harvard University campus on June 29, 2023 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Supreme Court recently ruled that race-conscious admission policies used by Harvard and the University of North Carolina violate the Constitution, bringing an end to affirmative action in higher education. A day after the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority gutted affirmative action in college admissions by equating it with discrimination, the same justices broadened the First Amendment right of religious business owners to choose whom they will serve, even when those choices might otherwise constitute discrimination. Though both rulings represented major conservative victories, most observers treated them as disconnected from one another. The first asked whether universities can consider race in admissions, the second whether a Christian web designer can refuse to build wedding websites for same-sex couples. But, ironically, the robust deference the court extended to the business owner in the second case may offer a pathway for certain private religious universities to continue considering race in their admissions decisions. To understand the connection between the two cases, recall that the affirmative action ruling involved two universities. In the case against the University of North Carolina , the court […]
