The United States Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a widely-used policy that allowed universities to consider race when admitting students, effectively ending the controversial decades-old approach that could have major implications for tertiary institutions within America’s borders. 

In a 6-3 decision delivered by Chief Justice John Roberts, the top court held that the admissions programmes at Harvard and the University of North Carolina “cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause” because they “lack sufficiently focused and measurable objectives warranting the use of race, unavoidably employ race in a negative manner, involve racial stereotyping, and lack meaningful endpoints.”

Justice Clarence Thomas, a black judge on the court, said in his concurring opinion that “the Constitution continues to embody a simple truth: Two discriminatory wrongs cannot make a right” and racial preferences “appear to be leading to a world in which everyone is defined by their skin colour, demanding ever-increasing entitlements and preferences on that basis.”

Other members of the conservative majority court who backed the majority opinion included Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor of the court’s liberal minority caucus decried how the ruling “rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress” and “cements a superficial rule of colourblindness as a constitutional principle in an endemically segregated society where race has always mattered and continues to matter.”

Today’s ruling was a major victory for opponents of affirmative action across the U.S., who had long argued that the policy was itself discriminatory, even though it was designed to address America’s history of racial discrimination against its black populations. 

The case was brought by a coalition of Asian-American students under the aegis of  Students for Fair Admissions, which accused Harvard and the University of North Carolina of rejecting their applications despite far higher scores than black students. 

The ruling may compel other American institutions to find other criteria for admitting minority black students without explicitly indicating racial affiliations. 

The decision overturned a 2003 case in which the court held that race-based admissions should be allowed but warned that such practices should be obsolete in 25 years. But over 20 years later, controversies have continued to trail the policy, with critics saying Harvard and other universities had no intention of retiring the discriminatory criteria forever. 

In its reaction, Harvard said it would continue to prioritise diversity in its admissions policy. The school said the court allowed administrators to consider black applicants who might have been adversely impacted by their race. 

The Court also ruled that colleges and universities may consider in admissions decisions ‘an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.’ We will certainly comply with the Court’s decision,” Harvard said. “We write today to reaffirm the fundamental principle that deep and transformative teaching, learning, and research depend upon a community comprising people of many backgrounds, perspectives, and lived experiences.”