A Critical Race Perspective: Lessons Learned From U.S. Supreme Court Cases About Race-Conscious Admissions in U.S. Higher Education

This chapter offers a critical analysis of the legal landscape for race-conscious admissions in U.S. higher education, primarily over the past 50 years. The authors offer this scholarship to scholars, the legal community, policymakers, and higher education leaders to reevaluate, reinterpret, and reframe legal and historical precedents for race-conscious admissions as they seek to achieve a more equitable future. Analyzing through the lens of critical race theory, they provide an overview of historical context that begins prior to the passage of the 14th Amendment in 1866 and continues through the U.S. Supreme Court’s race-conscious admissions decisions. Like Scholars of Color before them, the authors aim to provide a perspective that critiques opposition to race-conscious admissions and illuminates lessons learned for how to advance more racially equitable participation in higher education that should be sustained through legal precedents.

Keywords: affirmative action; college admissions; critical race theory