Three years ago last month, the U.S. Supreme Court ended affirmative action in college admissions. The Trump administration has since turned this narrow ruling into a blunt tool to go after diversity, equity and inclusion programming and even initiate campus antisemitism investigations that have nothing to do with admissions at all. And now that the Supreme Court has issued a ruling on trans students’ participation in sports, could the administration be further emboldened to target gender in a similar way?
The June 2023 ruling in Students for Fair Admission v. Harvard said race-based admissions programs violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. As expected, colleges made sweeping and immediate changes to their admissions policies. Since then, researchers have reported that underrepresented students have “cascaded” from highly selective institutions to less selective state flagships and then to open-access regional and community colleges.
Less expected from the landmark SFFA ruling, though, is how the Trump administration has extended it. Any perceived racial or ethnic preferences in higher ed, including funding for Hispanic-serving institutions and race-based scholarships, risk being accused of violating the affirmative action ruling. One law firm described the administration’s approach as “waving the SFFA decision like a sword.” The stakes are high: Colleges found in violation of civil rights law could lose access to federal student loans.
