The Supreme Court Makes the Same Ruling It Always Does on Affirmative Action

It allows for continuing affirmative action, but they have ruled against the specific remedy.

That is the nickel tour of
Fisher v. UT Austin:

Today a broad majority of the Court reinforced that affirmative action must be strictly reviewed, but it did not outlaw those programs. In an opinion that required only thirteen pages, the Court explained that a university’s use of race must meet a test known as “strict scrutiny.” Under this test, a university’s use of affirmative action will be constitutional only if it is “narrowly tailored.” The Court in Fisher took pains to make clear exactly what this means: courts can no longer simply rubber-stamp a university’s determination that it needs to use affirmative action to have a diverse student body. Instead, courts themselves will need to confirm that the use of race is “necessary” – that is, that there is no other realistic alternative that does not use race that would also create a diverse student body. Because the lower court had not done so, the Court sent the case back for it to determine whether the university could make this showing.

They have been making this same decision since Bakke.

I expect this to continue, until affirmative action is effectively a dead issue.