Equal Protection v Affirmative Action: The Wigs Discuss The Harvard and UNC Cases

The Wigs

In this episode, The Wigs discuss a massively controversial recent decision of the US Supreme Court in which the so-called conservative "super majority" struck down as unlawful affirmative action on the basis of race in university admissions. The case is known as Students for Fair Admissions v Harvard and involved two separate cases one involving Harvard, the other the University of North Carolina. The wigs discuss the 14th amendment, the impact of affirmative action, the long-standing legal test for affirmative action as an accepted derogation from the 14th amendment known as "strict scrutiny" and why the majority said the test wasn't met and the practices unlawful. The Plaintiff 'Students for Fair Admission' or SFFA brought the case on behalf of a group of Asian Americans denied entry to university in the context of affirmative action policies they alleged had worked against them. SFFA describes itself on its website as, "a nonprofit membership group of more than 20,000 students, parents, and others who believe that racial classifications and preferences in college admissions are unfair, unnecessary, and unconstitutional. Our mission is to support and participate in litigation that will restore the original principles of our nation’s civil rights movement: A student’s race and ethnicity should not be factors that either harm or help that student to gain admission to a competitive university".

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