Judicial Watch, Allied Educational Foundation File Amici Curiae Brief in Supreme Court Case Challenging Harvard, UNC Race-Based Admissions Policies

(Washington, DC) Judicial Watch announced today that it filed an amici curiae brief alongside the Allied Educational Foundation (AEF) in support of Students for Fair Admissions’ Supreme Court cases challenging both Harvard College and the University of North Carolina’s (UNC) race-based affirmative action admissions programs (Students for Fair Admission v. President & Fellows of Harvard College (No. 20-1199)) and (Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina, et al. (No. 21-707)).

Students for Fair Admissions argues that both Harvard and UNC’s use of race in their undergraduate admissions process violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause commands that: 

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. 

Judicial Watch and AEF argue in their brief that the Court should reject a prior 1978 Supreme Court opinion that seemingly authorizes racial discrimination in college admissions (Regents of Univ. of Cal. V. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978)). Since Bakke, there have been “at least 26 separate opinions. Many of these have attempted to explain the constitutional rationale for allowing race-based preferences, even though those rationales appear to directly conflict with the original meaning and text of the Equal Protection Clause.”

The amici brief highlights how race-based discrimination (and the resulting quota mentality) is permeating government. The brief quotes Vice President Kamala Harris’s attack on equality and implicit call for race-based quotas:

There’s a big difference between equity and equality. Equality suggests, “everyone should get the same amount.” The problem with that, not everybody’s starting out from the same place…. Equitable treatment means we all end up in the same place.

Referencing this and other Biden administration actions promoting racial favoritism, the brief notes:

There is, however, no constitutional guarantee that we will all “end up in the same place.” The foregoing statements reveal a distorted view of the Equal Protection Clause that would guarantee racially proportionate outcomes under the name of equity, not the equality of opportunity the Equal Protection Clause has always guaranteed. These are more than mere words or theories. Racial preferences have increasingly become incorporated in real-world, governmental decisions and policies. For example, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) officials recently sought to use race as a basis for deciding who receives governmental loan forgiveness.  

“Our higher education system needs to start following the Constitution and stop their race discrimination,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The Supreme Court would strike an historic blow for equal protection by putting a stop to this creeping racism.”

Judicial Watch and AEF recently filed an amici curiae  in support of the Coalition for Thomas Jefferson High School’s challenge to race-based admissions policies for the nationally known public high school that were put in place at in Fairfax County, Virginia.

In May 2022, Judicial Watch won a court battle against California’s gender quota law for corporate boards .The verdict came after a 28-day trial (Robin Crest et al. v. Alex Padilla (Case No. 19STCV27561)). The verdict followed a similar ruling in Judicial Watch’s favor in April finding California’s diversity mandate for corporate boards unconstitutional.

 In January 2022, the city of Asheville, NC, settled a Judicial Watch federal civil rights lawsuit after agreeing to remove all racially discriminatory provisions in a City-funded scholarship program. Additionally, the city also agreed to remove racially discriminatory eligibility provisions in a related program that provides grants to educators. The City Council approved the settlement on January 11. 

In April 2021, Judicial Watch and AEF filed an amici curiae brief in support of Students for Fair Admissions’ (SFA) petition for a writ of certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court, challenging a decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit upholding Harvard College’s race-based affirmative action admissions program (Students for Fair Admission v. President & Fellows of Harvard College (No. 20-1199)).

In March 2021, Judicial Watch filed an amici curiae brief with AEF in a companion case, in support of SFA’s petition for a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court challenging a decision of the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which upheld the race-based admissions program at the University of North Carolina (UNC) (Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina, et al. (No. 21-707)). The amici brief asked the court to no longer allow “universities to defend race-based admissions programs by relying upon schools’ purported educational needs for increased diversity.”

In January 2022, the Supreme Court agreed to review both decisions.

The Allied Educational Foundation is a charitable and educational foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life through education. In furtherance of that goal, the Foundation has engaged in a number of projects, which include, but are not limited to, educational and health conferences domestically and abroad. AEF has partnered frequently with Judicial Watch to fight government and judicial corruption and to promote a return to ethics and morality in the nation’s public life.

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