Don’t Misread SFFA v. Harvard
Preview:
Twenty years ago, the Supreme Court upheld the University of Michigan Law School’s affirmative action policy in the Grutter case. I served as dean of the law school when we applied and defended that policy.
The decision in the Students for Fair Admission case did not overrule Grutter. Instead, the majority opinion declared that Harvard University and the University of North Carolina had policies that were meaningfully different from both Michigan’s policy and the University of Texas policy that was upheld 10 years later in the Fisher case.
Originally published: July 17, 2023
Author: Jeffrey S. Lehman
Position: Vice Chancellor
Institution: New York University, Shanghai
Published by: Inside Higher Ed