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(Miami, FL) -- The U.S. Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision today limiting affirmative action programs in college admissions. Reaction to the decision by two influential Black leaders in south Florida is mixed. One says the decision is a massive setback for people of color while the other argues that it allows students to be admitted based on their merits and character.
Local Black attorney Clarence McKee, who attended Howard University, says today's decision does not ban affirmative action. He cites the Chief Justice who said, "instead of using race as a factor, applicants should write an essay about overcoming barriers such as race, poverty and geographic location." McKee adds that way the admission process will be merit-based and will consider a student's character and how he or she will benefit their school.
McKee also says today's decision rejects the concept of "critical race theory" and the idea of Black "victimhood."
Ruban Roberts, the immediate past president of the Miami-Dade Branch of the NAACP, says today's decision is yet another setback for people of color. He says affirmative action is "not just a Black thing." He says all races, Asian, Native American, Hispanic are included as well and "that we need to understand who we represent and who is America."
Roberts says that affirmative action leveled the playing field for people of color to access higher education and now the judiciary has taken that away. McKee argues that "you don't eliminate discrimination by discriminating."
The court held, in an opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, that Harvard and UNC's admissions programs violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Court decided that affirmative action policies must survive strict scrutiny and ruled that particular affirmative action policies violate the Fourteenth Amendment.