The Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in higher education institutions on June 29, reversing decades of precedent used in admissions processes since 1978.
UTSA President Taylor Eighmy has shared that UTSA does not anticipate any impact on the university’s admissions processes, which use a holistic approach and do not consider race.
The historic decision was made by a six-justice conservative supermajority, who ruled against race-based admissions programs at Harvard University and The University of North Carolina (UNC). The vote was 6-3 in the UNC case and 6-2 in the Harvard case, ruling both programs in violation of the Equal Protection Clause and therefore unlawful.
Chief Justice John Roberts said in the majority decision that students “must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race” and that universities “have concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned but the color of their skin.”
More information regarding UTSA’s freshman admissions process can be found here.
