Affirmative action: US Supreme Court overturns race-based college admissions - BBC News

The US Supreme Court has ruled that race can no longer be considered a factor in university admissions.

The landmark ruling changes decades-old US policies on so-called affirmative action, also known as positive discrimination.

It is one of the most contentious issues in US education.

Affirmative action first made its way into policy in the 1960s, and has been defended as a measure to increase diversity.

#SupremeCourt #BBCNews

[marsspacex]

Finally we returned to equality instead of discrimination.

[hourbee]

It’s time to judge people on the content of their character not the colour of their skin!

[curiositycloset]

Imagine education being merit based. This is outrageous.

[jankay]

Now elimimate racial and gender quotas in employment.

[SuperStarwarsfan]

It's about time! College admission should be based on academic achievement, not race or ethnicity!

[markc]

In the UK and US the focus should be at earlier levels of education so that people have more equality of opportunity rather than slanting the playing field at university level. That applies as much to working class kids of any ethnicity rather than any particular one.

[ryhol]

Thank goodness. Our colleges and universities have been excluding overly qualified students from reaching their goals. The focus needs to be on ensuring early and high quality elementary education. A lot of our public schools are absolutely trash

[goodlookinouthomie]

"6 votes to 3, not a surprised given the conservative leaning of the court".
You're literally telling us that the conservatives are not the racists.

[augustlion]

I have worked in big companies in this country since the 90's, I have lost count of the number of times the companies I worked for gave jobs to lesser qualified minorities to show how diverse we were. Personally, I have always believed in merit. I agree there are those in society who have more steps on the ladder to climb and I would be happy to help the ones on the lower rungs but when it comes to important senior jobs in adult life, it has to be on merit. 

Just as an aside, I have watched in disbelief the growing gap in performance between boys and girls at school in this country and the innate prejudices against boys, they are being failed and the fact this is not more widely covered in the UK is a bit of a disgrace.

[misterE-]

As a White man, this is a great day for my people. Thanks to the SCOTUS for helping dismantle systemic-racism.

[overthecounterbeanie]

How is not being racist "conservative"?!

[donaldf.switlick]

Equal Opportunity, YES. Equality of Outcome, NO. Do we give an extra 5 points to some groups in an exam and not others???

[tarakicordillera]

Admission based on merit not by ethnicity. A step forward for US.

[denethorpalantir]

A great day for Americans, not so much for cultural marxists.

[colinjohnston]

I love how the liberals are screaming from the hills that banning racial discrimination in favour or black/Latino students is Jim Crow.

[TheWarriorScout]

Small correction. The 6 justices are not all conservative, but they are constitutionalists.

[mikewayne]

The door is wide open, if you could not get in, don’t blame anybody, you need to try harder! If we all try harder, the grass is greener everywhere!

[joshuastrawser]

I find it bizarre that so many people are upset at the assertion that you cannot fix racism by employing racism. One would have thought that that was obvious, but apparently not.

[zapfanzapfan]

Good! Now also abolish preferential treatment if the applicants parent or grandparent went to that same university.

[captainvimes]

Just to let those know who are saying this is a racist act allow me to clarify: Lets say I'm trying to get into university. I have better qualifications than one of the people trying to get in. However I am white and the other individual is black. So based on the colour of their skin they can jump in front of me even if I've got better qualifications for applying.
Now lets switch it around: If we took the same situation but the ruling was to promote white people being able to jump in front of black people on the queue it would be considered incredibly racist and having the ruling overturned would be considered a step in right direction towards equality.

So to summarise to those who feel this is a completely racist decision I have a question: Why is it racist to allow one race to jump the queue but not racist to allow another race to jump the queue?