Supreme Court to issue separate rulings on affirmative action in college admissions.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson previously said she would recuse herself since the court had consolidated cases on a state school and Harvard, where she was on an advisory board. By separating the two, Jackson can now participate in the state-focused case.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court took a procedural step Friday that will allow the court’s first Black woman to participate in a high stakes challenge to affirmative action in college admissions.
The court agreed in January to take up the issue by granting two cases — one involving Harvard, a private university, and the other from the University of North Carolina, a public institution. The two cases were consolidated, meaning they were to be argued and decided together.
During her confirmation hearing, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said she would not take part in the consideration of the affirmative action issue, because she was on a board that advised Harvard on policy matters. Participating in the case would present a potential conflict of interest, she said.
But in a brief order Friday the court said the two cases are no longer consolidated. Because they’re now separate, she can participate in the case from the University of North Carolina.
The court said Justice Jackson took no part in the consideration of Friday’s order.
The court’s January decision to take up the cases presented the most serious threat in decades to the use of affirmative action by the nation’s public and private colleges and universities.
The court has repeatedly upheld affirmative action in the past. But two of the justices who were key to those decisions are gone — Anthony Kennedy and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Their replacements, Trump appointees Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, are more conservative and less likely to find the practice constitutional.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-issue-separate-rulings-affirmative-action-college-admiss-rcna39660?
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