Affirmative Action Timeline: Key Dates

• 1978: In a landmark decision, Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, the Supreme Court allows colleges to consider race among other factors when deciding which students to admit but prohibits them from using strict racial quotas. Justice Lewis Powell, who casts the deciding vote, says in his separate opinion that universities have a compelling governmental interest in attaining a diverse student body.
• 1995: The UC Board of Regents votes to end racial preferences in admissions and a year later California voters approve a referendum, Proposition 209, to outlaw discrimination or preferences for “any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.” Eight other states eventually follow suit, most recently Idaho in 2020.
• 1996: In Hopwood v. Texas, the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals bars all use of racial preferences in university admissions in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, the states under its jurisdiction, in a major victory for critics of affirmative action. The University of Texas adopts a new policy offering admission to the top 10% of graduates from each of the state’s high schools.
• 2003: In a pair of decisions involving the University of Michigan, the Supreme Court lays out finer distinctions for race-conscious admissions policies. In Grutter v. Bollinger, the court approves the law school’s practice of using race as a “plus” factor, but in Gratz v. Bollinger it blocks the undergraduate school from using a points-based admissions system that awards an automatic bonus to members of underrepresented groups.

• 2006: Michigan voters ban affirmative action in public universities based on race, gender and ethnicity by approving Proposal 2 with 58% of the vote.
• 2007: A 5-4 Supreme Court strikes down integration plans adopted voluntarily by school boards in Seattle and Louisville that use race as a factor in assigning students to K-12 public schools. Chief Justice John Roberts, in a plurality decision in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District, says that “the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
• 2013: Affirmative action survives yet another court challenge in the Supreme Court’s narrow decision in Fisher v. University of Texas (Fisher I), which leaves race-conscious admissions practices intact for the interim but ducks key issues by sending the case back to lower court for further proceedings.
• 2014: In Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, the Supreme Court upholds Michigan’s voter-approved ban on affirmative action in college admissions.
• 2016: In Fisher v. University of Texas (Fisher II), the Supreme Court upholds the constitutionality of the University of Texas at Austin’s use of race in admissions, reaffirming that universities have a compelling interest in pursuing the educational benefits that flow from having a diverse student body.
• 2023: The Supreme Court finds it unconstitutional to consider race in university admissions. “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court in a pair of cases, Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina and Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College. “The student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race.”

Write to Jan Wolfe at [email protected] and Jess Bravin at [email protected]

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