{"id":198,"date":"2024-02-09T16:53:02","date_gmt":"2024-02-09T16:53:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/caselaw\/?p=198"},"modified":"2024-02-09T16:53:02","modified_gmt":"2024-02-09T16:53:02","slug":"the-narrowly-tailored-overruling-of-grutter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/caselaw\/2024\/02\/09\/the-narrowly-tailored-overruling-of-grutter\/","title":{"rendered":"The Narrowly Tailored Overruling of\u00a0Grutter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In SFFA v. Harvard<\/em> (2023), The Supreme Court of the United States effectively (but not explicitly) overruled Grutter v. Bollinger <\/em>(2003), a landmark decision where the Supreme Court held that the University of Michigan Law School\u2019s use of racial preferences in student admissions did not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or the 42 U.S. Code \u00a7 1981. The Grutter<\/em> case precedes Fisher v. University of Texas<\/em>(2013), Fisher v. University of Texas<\/em> (2016) and the aforementioned Harvard<\/em> case in the group of significant U.S. Supreme Court cases regarding affirmative action in student admissions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grutter<\/em> was about a woman named Barbara Grutter, who was denied admission to the University of Michigan Law School. She filed a lawsuit against Lee Bollinger (the President of the University of Michigan at the time), arguing that the Law School had discriminated against her in the admissions process on the basis of race. The Law School had an admissions program which gave a significantly greater chance of admission to applicants belonging to certain minority groups. Before it reached the Supreme Court, the case was tried in lower federal courts, first in a U.S. District Court and subsequently in the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. The District Court held the Law School\u2019s use of race in its admission program to be unconstitutional but the Sixth Circuit reversed this decision, which led to the case ending up in the Supreme Court.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S legal system is based on case law and stare decisis, meaning that courts will adhere to precedent in making their decisions. In the Opinion of the Court of Grutter<\/em>, the Court adhered to Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pe<\/em>\u00f1<\/em>a<\/em> (1995), holding that 1) all racial classifications must serve a compelling state interest, and 2) they must be narrowly tailored to further that interest. This two-part, fundamental U.S. legal standard is called strict scrutiny. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Law School argued that student body diversity creates educational benefits, and thus in the context of higher education, serves a compelling government interest. Up to this point, Justice Lewis Powell\u2019s opinion (from the Court\u2019s previous ruling on the use of race in university admissions, Regents of the University of California v. Bakke <\/em>(1978)) on permissible race-conscious policies had \u201cserved as the touchstone for constitutional analysis of race-conscious admissions policies\u201d (Grutter<\/em>), although it was unclear in the lower courts whether it was binding precedent. The Court decided to endorse Justice Powell\u2019s opinion, and rule that the Law School had a compelling state interest in a diverse student body. In the Court\u2019s view, attaining a diverse student body was at the heart of the Law School\u2019s proper institutional mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Justice Powell\u2019s opinion from Bakke<\/em> also laid the foundation to decide on \u201cnarrow tailoring\u201d, and the Court found that the Law School\u2019s admissions program was narrowly tailored to further the aforementioned interest, since the Law School engaged in a highly invidualized, holistic review of each applicant\u2019s file, giving serious consideration to all the ways an applicant might contribute to a diverse educational environment, and the admissions program did not unduly burden individuals who are not members of the favored racial and ethnic groups.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To sum up Grutter<\/em>, the Court ruled that the Law School\u2019s use of race in student admissions was not unconstitutional since it served a compelling state interest and it was narrowly tailored to further that interest. Additionally, the Court specified that race-conscious admissions policies must be limited in time, and that all governmental use of race must have a logical end point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As stated in the beginning, the Court effectively overruled Grutter <\/em>in the Harvard<\/em> case last year. In the Harvard<\/em> case, an organization named Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) filed suit against Harvard University. It was once again alleged that a race-based affirmative action program in student admissions is unconstitutional. This time around the federal lower courts ruled in favor of affirmative action but surprisingly the Supreme Court reversed the ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, holding that Harvard\u2019s admission program violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike in Grutter, <\/em>the Court found in the Harvard <\/em>case that the use of race in student admissions is not a compelling state interest that can be narrowly tailored to further that interest. The Court viewed relevant interests such as training future leaders, acquiring new knowledge based on diverse outlooks, and preparing engaged and productive citizens only as commendable goals but not as sufficiently coherent interests for the purposes of strict scrutiny. The Court also noted that these goals (in order to know when they have been reached so that racial preferences can end) are difficult or nearly impossible to measure, and that the \u201cunclear connection between the goals that respondents seek and the means they employ preclude courts from meaningfully scrutinizing respondents\u2019 admissions programs\u201d. Finally, the Court considered the statement from Grutter<\/em> that race-conscious admissions policies must be limited in time, and that all governmental use of race must have a logical end. The Court held that Harvard\u2019s admissions program lacked the logical end point that Grutter<\/em> required.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In conclusion, Grutter <\/em>appeared to be, atleast to some extent, a sequel to Bakke <\/em>where Justice Powell\u2019s views of affirmative action were confirmed to be binding legal principles. However, the Harvard <\/em>case significantly changed these legal principles. The fact that the Court effectively overruled Grutter<\/em> but did not explicitly classify it as an overruling, is interesting. In the dissenting opinion of the Harvard<\/em> case, Justice Sotomayer states that the Court had now overruled decades of precedent. Is the stare decisis doctrine something that guides the Court to decide in a certain way, or rather a tool to justify the decision that has already been made?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Team L. M. W. F. (Harvard, Case Genetics) <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In SFFA v. Harvard (2023), The Supreme Court of the United States effectively (but not explicitly) overruled Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), a landmark decision where the Supreme Court held that the University of Michigan Law School\u2019s use of racial preferences in student admissions did not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Title VI of the Civil … Continue reading The Narrowly Tailored Overruling of\u00a0Grutter<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35805,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scotus-2024"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/caselaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/caselaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/caselaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/caselaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35805"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/caselaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/caselaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":199,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/caselaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198\/revisions\/199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/caselaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/caselaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/caselaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}