so, we are seeing right now a lot of corporate and also public private sector organizations scaling back efforts because they are afraid of the lawsuit and we are seeing more and more lawsuits after going through the judiciary system hopefully be able to reach the supreme court within the next few years, so we will have a better understanding of how the supreme court will continue to rule on the issue of race consideration. >> all right, miao wang and hao wu, the film looks incredible. thank you for making it. i really appreciate that. and thank you for spending time with us. ng i am sam stein. the msnbc film admissions granted starts right now. . pia]

[crowd murmuring] - a crucial supreme court ruling on affirmative action could come tomorrow, as colleges and universities grapple with the possibility that race might no longer be a factor in admissions. - the central question being decided this time: is should affirmative action continue forever in the name of diversity, and are the gains achieved worth the harms allegedly inflicted on asian american students? this is the most important civil rights case of our era. i don't think it's an overstatement to say they're freaking out right now. one admissions official told me, some colleges are so worried about being sued in the wake of this decision that they're thinking about scrubbing racial and ethnic data from their websites. there has to be some discrimination here. there has to be something against asian americans specifically. this case is going to be something more than just about admissions. the notion that noticing race is per se unconstitutional

could be devastating for a number of areas of the law. and i think it's very frustrating that asian americans are a face of this. - this litigation started back in 2014. at issue is harvard's admissions policy and the role that race plays in determining who gets in to one of the most selective elite institutions of higher education in the world. - harvard. - harvard. - this is harvard, the apex of academia for america. it is the place where the j.p. morgans, the henry thoreaus, the franklin roosevelts and the william hearsts prepared themselves to become the nation's leaders in industry, government, and literature. - ♪ fight fiercely, harvard ♪ fight, fight, fight ♪ demonstrate to them our skill ♪ ♪ albeit they possess the might ♪ ♪ nonetheless, we have the will! ♪ ♪ how we will... i remember i was telling my dad. i was like, hey, i want to go to harvard. i think i was like five at that time.

so you went to harvard, right? what about toofer? is he any good? i don't know if he's mentioned this to you 100 times, but he went to harvard. harvard will save me. harvard will save me. my passion is obviously in politics. and to me, the way to attain it, well, i guess the best way to attain it, is to attend an ivy league institution. yangping yang and susan, i just want you to know that your son's out late tonight because he's hanging out with me, a presidential candidate. i'm so impressed with him. in total, i probably applied to around 40 colleges. so i applied to all of the ivy leagues minus cornell, because cornell was more math and science heavy. stanford, caltech, mit. all the top ranking ucs. pomona, williams... what's the second ranked school? amherst. it was stressful. and then the last decision that i opened was harvard. big one. so weird. this just doesn't feel real. okay, so i'm about to open my harvard early action decision. all right. do you want me to look?

no. i knew that with my statistics, i had a good shot. i started my own company. [michael] 4.67 gpa. perfect act score. my sat was 2230. [calvin] i also organized climate protests here in new york city, as well as worldwide. [michael] first place in the u.s. open music competition. you know, in speech and debate, i had multiple first places or finalist awards. i sang for obama's inauguration. [calvin] i'm on the varsity rugby team. i was on the varsity swim team as well. among my asian american peers, we recognize that our race may put us at a disadvantage. some of my friends who are mixed race or asian american plus white or asian american plus something else. under applications, they tended to choose the other race, not asian american. [screams of excitement] waitlisted at harvard. ok, should we take a break? i feel like... it's up to you, yeah. i just saw rejection after rejection after rejection after rejection. i really thought i had a good shot. and then i didn't get in.

i felt like my future was slipping away from my hands. when i was in that anger phase, a large part of it was me going online and looking how students reacted. dear kevin, i'm sor--very sorry. all four years for this. [soft piano music] i got waitlisted. and that's when i noticed one common theme - they were asian american. so then that's when i thought - oh, what if me being asian american was the problem? yeah, and then a lot of the kids who have near perfect sats and near perfect gpas and amazing extracurricular activities who are asian in my school, they don't, they don't... i mean, they end up in great schools, but not ivy league. that's why i wanted to file a lawsuit. that's when my dad stopped me. he's like, wait, first you know how much a lawsuit costs? that's when my dad decided, you know, this is a big enough issue to where we should gather asian parents to try

and form a coalition to really help address this issue and put this issue to the forefront. as a child growing up, my father told me that if you work hard, you'll be able to succeed. what do we know that as? we know that as the american dream. [suspenseful music] - good evening and welcome to tucker carlson tonight. here's an interesting and potentially significant story. - several asian american groups are saying they're being punished for their success. a group called students for fair admissions is suing harvard university for discrimination. my name is michael wang. i was one of the first students to come to the forefront of media attention when it comes to racial discrimination, especially against asian americans

and affirmative action. my name is calvin yang, and i'm a plaintiff in the sffa versus harvard case. the trump administration siding with asian american students claiming racial discrimination against harvard university. at issue is whether the university imposes a cap on the number of qualified asian american students that it admits. but is it really just an attempt to set back the entire notion of affirmative action? i was a little confused in the beginning. i remember asking a colleague who's a lawyer - i don't understand this, because what does this have to do with affirmative action? and he said, well, if you read the complaint, the remedy that they were asking for was an end to considering race in college admissions. my name is natasha warikoo and i am professor of sociology at tufts university, and i've written on college admissions and affirmative action. affirmative action is a policy by which when there's a competitive process and there are more people than there are slots, whether it's college admissions

or government contracts or hiring, an organization considers membership in an underrepresented group when making selection decisions. - this is a relative rarity, a lawsuit about alleging that asian americans are discriminated against and that affirmative action discriminates against them. normally, you know, the lawsuits allege that whites are injured by affirmative action policies. so from harvard square to the cambridge common, these students are marching. they say affirmative action and diversity in admissions is under attack, and they're letting their voices be heard. my name is cecilia nunez. i graduated harvard class of 2020. my name is sally chen. i graduated from harvard college in 2019. my name is margaret m. chin. i graduated harvard college in 1984. currently, i'm a professor of sociology at hunter college.

we are more than our scores. [sally] i didn't really want to get involved at first. i was, like, scared. but our silence was complicit. right? especially to african american and latinx students on campus. you know do you think your race helped you get in, or do you think it was because you got to check two boxes? this question of did you get in just because of your race came up a lot, and people feel very comfortable just asking you that. - race cannot be removed from the admissions process, because harvard is made great by its students and its students are made great by diversity. we belong here. and affirmative action is a right that we have. i was pretty angry. so while we affirm how important diversity is, if you get rid of affirmative action, you're actually taking away racial justice. you're actually trying to bring back... can i say the word? segregation. affirmative action is under attack. - what do we do? - stand up, fight back!

i'm here to stand up and defend affirmative action, as it's under threat by edward blum and the department of justice. i am not sure what the outcome is going to be, but i'm really proud of my community and all the harvard students for coming out today. hey, hey, ho, ho, edward blum has got to go. hey, hey, ho, ho, edward blum has got to go. hey, hey, ho, ho. - very quickly here, edward blum is the founder of sffa. who is he and why? what's his story here? edward blum, a broker and middleman for disgruntled white people. - an extremist some might say, who has weaponized communities of color against each other. - a couple of his donors, they're wealthy, very conservative foundations. - despite not being a lawyer, blum has been behind some of the most high-profile supreme court cases of the last decade, including what seems like his one-man mission to end affirmative action in the united states as we know it. the mission of students for fair admissions

is to eliminate the use of race and ethnicity in college admissions. and we can file various lawsuits that we think will dovetail and eventually meet the goals of eliminating race and ethnicity. i grew up in a post world war ii jewish household. when i was in college back in 1969, i considered myself an anti-war liberal, just as my mom and dad. on many issues, i find myself to the left of center. on other issues, i find myself to the right of center. but when it comes to race and ethnicity in college admissions, i'm not sure there really is a delineation between left and right. all in all, beginning with the texas case, out of the 30 lawsuits, about 30 lawsuits,

six of them have gone up to the supreme court. hopefully, the harvard case will be the seventh case. patience, patience. none of these happened overnight. thanks for tolerating me through all of that. it's been a busy 40 years. nexium 24hr prevents heartburn acid for twice as long as pepcid. get all-day and all-night heartburn acid prevention with just one pill a day. choose acid prevention. choose nexium. every day, more dog people, and more vets are deciding it's time for a fresh approach to pet food. they're quitting the kibble. and kicking the cans. and feeding their dogs dog food that's actually well, food. developed with vets. made from real meat and veggies. portioned for your dog. and delivered right to your door. it's smarter, healthier pet food.

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[crowd applauding]r risk. ♪ - harvard, we condemn you for your shameless slandering and the propagating unfounded racial stereotypes

that asian americans are only good at taking tests. face your own racism and dishonesty, harvard, instead of keeping slandering us. you cannot tell us apart because of your own ignorance, your own bigotry, your own cluelessness. today we have a powerful array of speakers lined up. first, let me introduce you to our next speaker, mr. yukong zhao.

asian americans have held numerous protests. they never got mentioned in mainstream media until in 2014. edward blum has filed a litigation on behalf of asian americans, against racial discrimination. now, mainstream media are indeed talking about asian americans. that is a fresh, shocking sight. [crowd cheering] i'm yenta the matchmaker out of fiddler on the roof. i find plaintiffs, i find lawyers, and i put them together.

[natasha] i was doing research and i kept getting these ads. do you feel like you were discriminated against in college admissions? and there would be a sort of forlorn-looking asian american person in the picture. i needed plaintiffs. i needed asian plaintiffs. [michael] so i reached out to him by email, wanting to learn more from him. [calvin] i found the website. and then i'm like, mr. blum, i'm not okay with this. he's like, calvin, i read your file. you're an excellent kid. let's talk. he's like, i'm starting an organization called students for fair admissions, sffa, the current organization filing the lawsuit against harvard. i'm compiling a number of students who feel like they're being discriminated against, but they don't want to appear in front of a camera. they don't want their names publicized in fear that these colleges will retaliate against them. and he told me, like, i want you to be a spokesperson for these students. - michael wang did everything he could to get into harvard. [michael] had i been african american or latino, i might have got into more schools that i'm not even sure myself. it's a sad irony that there is this white man who doesn't seem to really care that much about asian americans spearheading this effort.

- good luck tomorrow. - a great thing you are doing. - what a great thing. - thank you. - good luck tomorrow. - thank you. - thank you. - good luck. thank you. [car horn blares] [seagulls cawing] - today, harvard university's admission practices go on trial. - the suit has forced harvard to release six years of student data. - there is gonna be a battle of two economists and it might be this showdown on the factual side. - one packed courtroom, not even enough. a second overflow courtroom had to be opened. hi. i'm jeannie, jeannie suk gersen. - nice to meet you. so good to meet you. good to meet you. - can you walk us through this lawsuit, explain exactly what's sort of at stake here? well, the lawsuit takes place under a law called title six of the civil rights act. my name is jeannie suk gersen, and i am a professor of law at harvard law school. as a person of color in elite institutions,

i could see that asian americans were going to become a bigger part of the story than they previously had been. and then in 2014, when the lawsuit against harvard, my own university, was filed, i was watching it very closely. and then i wrote about it for the first time in 2017. is this the harvard case? go get 'em. discrimination is bad. - sure is. [soft footsteps, chair squeaks] [judge bangs gavel] [adam] your honor, adam mortara for students for fair admissions. the evidence will show and allow the court to test the proposition whether harvard is really treating everyone as a whole person, instead of as, first and foremost, the member of a racial group. our point is not that harvard has a quota system down to the last jot and tittle.

the point is that harvard achieves a rough racial balance. students for fair admissions has challenged harvard, specifically about harvard's demerits and discrimination directed toward asian americans. [adam] harvard has known for quite some time that they have a problem. harvard's own researchers told dean fitzsimmons that there was a statistically significant penalty on asian americans applying to harvard in february 2013. students for fair admissions' expert took the six years of data that your honor ordered produced, and he did a logistic regression analysis. he found the asian penalty results in a 20% reduction in the admissions chances of an asian american applicant. there were a couple of pieces of evidence that were difficult to square with a lack of discrimination against asians.

i think there actually are legitimate ways where you can argue that asian americans have been discriminated against by harvard university, because they use a particular statistic called personal rating. so we should spell out for people that harvard rates applicants on four categories - academics, extracurricular activities, sports, and personal qualities. - based on an analysis of more than 160,000 student records, their argument is that asian americans scored higher than other racial or ethnic groups on quantifiable measures like test scores, grades, and extracurricular activities, only to be rejected via the more subjective personal ratings. - personal rating. - personal ratings. personal rating to score each applicant on factors such as positive personality, likability. integrity or kindness or decency. grit, overcoming obstacles. unusual effervescence. effervescence. i think it's cultural discrimination.

asian americans are just shut-ins who only study hard and do nothing else. courage, bravery - saying that asian american students lack that, it's insulting. many asian americans who are in favor of affirmative action, they still felt very disturbed, as between white and asian, that asians were being given lower personal scores, which then affected their admissions rate. i have moderate to severe crohn's disease. now, there's skyrizi. ♪ things are looking up ♪ ♪ i've got symptom relief ♪ ♪ control of my crohn's means everything to me ♪ (♪♪) ♪ control is everything to me ♪ feel significant symptom relief at 4 weeks with skyrizi, including less abdominal pain and fewer bowel movements. skyrizi is the first il-23 inhibitor that can deliver remission and visibly improve damage of the intestinal lining. and skyrizi is proven to help deliver long-lasting remission at one year. serious allergic reactions and an increased risk of infections

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essentials with the chase ink[soft footsteps]ard [bill] may it please the court. my name is bill lee. i represent harvard. the plaintiff offers an analysis of an economist who has so manipulated the data that they are living proof that if you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything. i do think the statistical modeling is helpful. now the proof is often in the pudding. how do you model a holistic process quantitatively? you try to think about the situation as it actually is in real life. sffa didn't use that model. [bill] when professor card modeled harvard's admissions process,

considering all the applicants, considering all the quantifiable information that the admissions office itself considers, and considering the information year by year, the way that the admissions office does, he found no statistical evidence of discrimination. [bill] race is considered as one factor among many in harvard's admissions process. harvard itself determined long ago that diversity of all kinds was in the best interest of the college and its students. on the screen now, your honor, is an excerpt from the 1996 report by then president neil rudenstine. the president of harvard university, neil rudenstine. so to keep them open, to keep them excellent and to keep them diverse

seems a goal worthy of all of our efforts and hard work. you gentlemen know better than anyone else how valuable is the educational experience

of men of diverse interests and different backgrounds living together. - this case is really two cases. the first case is, are asian americans applying to harvard facing discrimination? the second case is, should we do something to ensure that higher education, especially elite institutions, that it's diverse? so i remember the morning of the case, i spent the entire morning slicking all of my hair back, back, back, back, back. you need to be even more respectful than anyone else in that room, because in some ways we were there as physical representations of the students

who deserve to be at places like harvard. i thought the students' testimony was effective. some witnesses spoke of the personal impact of having been admitted to harvard as people from disadvantaged communities, and the effect that it had on their lives. also, the fact that they were surrounded at harvard by other people from diverse backgrounds and how much it added to their educational experience. it was part of harvard's strategy, raising the level of generality out of, were asians discriminated against? to the higher level of abstraction about why it is that harvard has the admissions process that it does. so when i was applying for colleges, i spoke with my counselor. the thing he told me was, don't write an asian immigrant story. it's overdone. it's not compelling. i remember just being just so hurt and offended.

my parents are both immigrants from china. my dad worked in chinese restaurant industry. growing up, i had to act as a translator and an advocate for my parents at times. it's a hard thing, i think, for a kid to experience. but it definitely shaped, like, what kind of person that i am. no, i did not expect to get into princeton nor harvard, because my sat scores were not that great. somebody came to recruit me in chinatown, and they were looking for asian americans in particular to apply. i applied to harvard because of their affirmative action program. [sally] when i reviewed my admissions file, they talk about, like, genuine.. and wanting to make friends and connect with people, that a lot of that comes from identifying as an outsider.

[birds chirping] [cecilia] for a lot of us who testified during the court case, we know that diversity means a lot to the students of color who are on harvard's campus. we know that a lot of us wouldn't have come if harvard wasn't as diverse as it was now. we know that a lot of the problems we have is because harvard still isn't as diverse as it could be. so today, when my class, the class of 1984, goes for reunion events, we had 6% asian american students. when we walk outside of our reunion events, it's a whole different world, because there are so many asian americans and people of color in general. [sally] it's not about protecting harvard. it's not about saying this is the right system. but it's about saying that affirmative action policies are beneficial. diversity is important on campuses.

it's beyond this specific institution and this set of seats. [soft music fades] - a major legal case about college admissions wrapped up today in boston. - this trial has certainly shed some unflattering light on the inner workings of harvard's admissions process. - no matter what the judge decides, the harvard case could go all the way to the supreme court and change the way race is used in college admissions. on the one hand, the evidence that was explored at trial... ...was revealing and damning. on the other hand, there wasn't a whole lot. and there was no smoking gun, certainly, that showed that harvard made a plan to discriminate against asians. but actually, as the trial went on and i kind of, you know, a lot of that data became public and i started reading these reports, what i realized was that it's not that there is discrimination towards asian americans,

but rather it's what the colleges are looking at that benefit white students over all students of color, including asian americans. harvard currently awards massive preferences for recruited athletes, children of its alumni, children of major donors or relations of major donors, and children of its faculty. what we call the aldc group. athletes, legacies, donors, children of faculty. you have an admissions rate of eight times that of other groups. 5% of the applicant pool. 30%. they are 30% of harvard's entering class. and that doesn't have to do necessarily with race explicitly, but of course, the members of those groups right now are disproportionately white. three quarters of them, three quarters, would not have been admitted if they'd competed with everybody else.

and for a lot of us, i think that that really was a shock. why are we sitting here all talking about competing against students of color for percentages, when we have apparently all these people over here who bought their way into harvard or about people who donated their way into harvard? - it's a money question. - right. it's an affirmative action for the wealthy. the real face of affirmative action on america's elite college campuses is white and privileged. it's actually hard to stand up and make a really principled case for why one thinks it is the right and moral thing to do to provide a systematic advantage for students who have had every possible advantage. some of those are problematic, but they're not illegal. and so i'm not a like rah rah, harvard does everything right at all. but i think that what they are doing around affirmative action is really important, and that's what i support. you know what's brilliant? boring. think about it. boring is the unsung catalyst for bold.

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against asian american applicants. - saying of its admissions process - it is not perfect. that being said, the court will not dismantle a very fine admissions program that passes constitutional muster solely because it could do better. and she did talk about the question of this personal rating. and, you know, she said that there's a small issue here. the university should look at it. the majority of asian american students go to public schools. private schools have a lot of resources, and guidance counselors have much fewer students that they are guiding towards the college admissions process. their letters of recommendation aren't as good. and white students are much more likely to be going to private school. they might benefit from higher guidance counselor ratings. so in the end, i do think the district court's conclusion that harvard, whatever it did, did not intentionally discriminate against asians

was the correct ruling. [birds chirping] [screen door closes] [edward] we advocate to the courts one thing and one thing only. we are kind of a one trick pony. colleges should look at the entire individual. what is not reasonable and what is unfair and what is unconstitutional is to treat students differently because of their skin color and their ethnic heritage. [paws patter on sand] often legal advocacy on constitutional issues is really the only route to go. you hope to establish a benchmark

that future litigants can build on. the legal teams that came together to advocate for the civil rights principles that your race and your ethnicity shouldn't be a factor, worked tirelessly for decades to bring cases to the u.s. supreme court, that would eventually end segregated schools. i think the model is really being used throughout advocacy and general litigation. the idea that the most successful litigation strategy in history would give rise to anti-civil rights litigation, to try to make our country worse for people because of their race, is to me, is just so deeply cynical. i'm danielle holley. i'm the dean of howard university school of law, and i'm also a professor here.

i definitely do. like i said, i-- because my mother was raised in the jim crow south, i know that, for me, there was no way forward. my mom went to stanford after the civil rights act passed. my dad went to berkeley after the civil rights act passed. there was no way forward for us in these educational spaces without the existence of affirmative action. so we're gonna be talking this half hour on the today program about what some people call affirmative action, others call reverse discrimination. what affirmative action is about is trying to correct 300 years of oppression which has caused underrepresentation of blacks and other minority groups in higher education. so affirmative action to me, i trace it back to the 1960s, to the memos that we see from president johnson and president kennedy that talk about all of the vestiges of de jure segregation,

all of the vestiges of legalized segregation, and taking affirmative steps to remediate those particular areas. you do not take a person who for years has been hobbled by chains, and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say you are free to compete with all the others, and still justly believe that you have been completely fair. affirmative action actually first started to increase minority representation when awarding government contracts. and it was private universities that then separately instituted their own version of affirmative action.

- largely through affirmative action programs, there has been a large increase in minority admissions to mostly white medical schools. - in the last decade, some of the biggest gains in black employment have been made here, and affirmative action must be given much of the credit. we went from jim crow to a period of where we used things like affirmative action to even open the door just a little. and it's not that many people have walked through those doors. as far as i'm concerned, there are two sets of standards, one■s for whites and one for black. we are all equal, but let everybody start at the same starting line like a horse race.

poor poles, poor irish, poor jews, poor protestants in this country who have also been individually disadvantaged. and we ought to stop considering on the basis of race and consider on the basis of individual merit. to me, when i hear people are anti-affirmative action, i hear that they in many ways are anti-equality, that they are pro the regime before affirmative action. and the only regime before affirmative action is apartheid, is racialized apartheid in the united states. - local and federal affirmative action rules have led to minority quotas on construction sites. but unemployment hits this industry the hardest. it's one thing. it's one thing. and it is racism. [women yelling] we don't ask for a guarantee of results. what it is that the minorities have asked for is a guarantee of opportunity.

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today get the fastest connection to paris with xfinity. that allan bakke must be admitted to a school which turned him down in a case of reverse discrimination. and that case just said, you can't use quotas. you can't set aside certain spots for racial minorities. but, you can use the system to achieve diversity that includes all kinds of factors. race is one of them. the court was deeply divided, 5 to 4, and the various opinions ran to 40,000 words. the court singled out the procedures used at harvard as a model for achieving student body diversity without unfairness. that sort of laid the groundwork for talking about race in this way, right? so we shift from justice and equity and access to multiculturalism, and diversity is good for everyone. i am very in favor of the diversity rationale. i just think that the diversity rationale should have never been seen as separate

and apart from the original rationale for affirmative action, which is to remediate past discrimination. [crowd chanting] - today's decision did not set the country on a new course, and it did not supply a definitive answer to a basic question - how to give one group of americans a chance to catch up without depriving other americans of their rights. by 2003, lots and lots of people are unhappy about affirmative action, and they want to get it overruled. - for the first time since the seventies, the supreme court today took affirmative action in education, dead on. two white females say the university of michigan denied them admission using tough standards for whites. - her supporters would argue that her treatment was a violation of the 14th amendment to the constitution, guaranteeing all citizens equal protection under the law. ironically, that amendment had been adopted after the civil war to protect former black slaves. [jeannie] the supreme court declines to overrule bakke,

and reaffirms that it's a compelling interest to have student body diversity and schools can try to accomplish that by using race as one of many factors. but justice o'connor said 25 years from now, she expected that affirmative action would no longer be necessary. so there was always the sense that affirmative action was a solution that was temporary and wouldn't be needed at some point in the future. [edward] so, very disappointing outcome. a number of us at that point began a quest to have that decision overturned. so the first thing was a lawsuit against the university of texas. abigail fisher filed her lawsuit in 2008. - a white high school senior, abigail fisher. - fisher claimed she was not admitted because she is white. now, abigail fisher did not file her lawsuit out of the blue. she was handpicked by conservative activist edward blum. [edward] her case went to the supreme court

the first time in 2013. and we won an important element in this long term legal strategy. it's a nuanced decision. it's a vintage kennedy. basically, he said you can still consider race for purposes of diversity, but you have to satisfy a higher burden. fisher made it much harder for schools to defend their admissions policies. you could see from the language that the supreme court started using around 2013 that affirmative action was vulnerable. with that bar now being reset much higher, a decision was made to sue harvard as a private university. we ended up suing the university of north carolina as the public school. - jose, forgive the interruption. brian williams here with you from new york. we have had a decision just handed down. [edward] the most disappointing case was fisher ii.

that's when abigail fisher, after really prevailing in fisher i, lost her case in a 4 to 3 decision. this is a huge defeat for the people who brought this case to the supreme court. and the people who brought this case to the supreme court were hoping that this case would be a vehicle that the supreme court would use to strike down affirmative action. that clearly is not gonna happen. there's an old billy joel song that has a lyric that i have always found comforting. i've lost a lot of fights, but it's taught me how to lose okay. i--i'm probably losing okay. if that's-- if that's the-- if that's the outcome. [traffic hums] - the federal court trial has begun this week in winston-salem. - students for fair admissions has filed and so far lost two other lawsuits against affirmative action policies at harvard and the university of texas at austin. [edward] it is our hope that one of our cases

will eventually be taken up by the u.s. supreme court, and the justices will strike down this divisive and polarizing part of the students' application process. it is clear that this has been decades in the making. when the supreme court changed over to be six conservatives, boom. - and a federal appeals court in boston has ruled that harvard university's admissions policies do not discriminate against asian americans. today's ruling paves the way for a possible review by the u.s. supreme court. [suspenseful music] [edward] the process of getting a case before the supreme court is a rather long and laborious one. so here is the supreme court page for students for fair admissions versus harvard. and i just received a text message from one

of our attorneys telling me that the final brief has been filed. yeah. hi, bill. good, good. i don't know, maybe june the 10th or so, they would consider an op-ed from one of our allies encouraging the court to take it again. i've got a better feeling about this one than i did about fisher or shelby county. you know, although we are in a fraught environment in this country today on issues of race and ethnicity, this is something that, at least four of the justices have had on their radar for most of their career. i think this could be the cornerstone of the restoration of colorblind principles: colorblind employment laws, colorblind voting laws, colorblind contracting laws. let's just hope they take it. [soft dramatic music]

it's funny how these things kind of work out in a way that serendipity just plays a role. i was the first in my family to go to college. the career i chose was public finance. i was a partner at a small investment bank, and we sold the partnership to a much larger firm and go into the consulting, which is what i have done. let's see, this was me back in 1992 as a congressional candidate. so i ran for congress. i lost. i sued the state of texas, arguing that the district was a racial gerrymander. that case went to the supreme court. that was quite a day. the day that we won that lawsuit, i was hooked forever. what becomes unconstitutional is where you have the--the intent to classify

and segregate voters. we know that government cannot grant a preference to an individual based upon his race or gender without discriminating against somebody as a consequence. it is not fair, it is not compassionate, and it is not right to tell them that they cannot do business with the federal government, even though they submitted the lowest bid. we believe that race and ethnicity should never be a factor. - yesterday, the supreme court struck down a key part of the most important civil rights law ever passed in this country, the voting rights act of 1965. [edward] when shelby county came down, i burst into tears. the america that elected barack obama is not the america of our parents and our grandparents. he's obviously passionate about his cause, but doesn't mean that his cause is valuable. a lot of times we think of affirmative action as benefiting latino students or black students.

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from chase for business. - and we have breaking news here in washington, raising major red flags among proponents of affirmative action in college admissions. - the supreme court announced that it would take up two affirmative action cases next term against harvard and the university of north carolina. no. i was puzzled. extremely disappointed. i am so excited. i didn't see any new legal question or any new issue that this case brought up. so to me, it is a blatant political use of their jurisdictional power. [suspenseful music] [margaret] so thanks for getting together. i really needed to--to hear and discuss some of these amicus briefs that supported harvard and unc.

yeah, it was exciting to see so many briefs come on in support of affirmative action. so i'm a signatory on the amici briefs submitted to the supreme court that's really based on what social science research tells us about the benefits of affirmative action for society. two different amicus briefs. so the first is a brief on behalf of hbcu leadership. and then there was a brief on behalf of black women law professors. in our amicus brief, we talk about mostly the importance of diversity.

we have to make this campaign broader to let people know it's not just only about affirmative action, you know, at harvard or at unc. [birds chirping, computer mouse scrolling] [edward] this one is kind of interesting. maybe that was last week. so this case is now in its seventh year. there seems to be a shifting tide in media coverage. i'm starting to see people who you normally wouldn't think of having second thoughts. they're having second thoughts. that's a function of the nature of the lawsuit, and the evolution of the lawsuit. now, i've always been a proponent of what they call affirmative action.

i don't even know if they use that term anymore. but i don't know. it's been a long time. maybe it's outdated. harvard did it. harvard achieved perfect racial diversity. but only 3% of those students are going to be black students from poverty, which means it's mostly been a benefit to the middle and upper classes of black folks. a 2016 gallup poll found that 70% of americans believe colleges should not consider race during the application process. personally, i think that doing it more based off of, i guess, like financial status more than race might-- might be an interesting way to go about that. two black professors at harvard did a study of harvard's black students and found that two thirds of them were either immigrants, the children of immigrants, or, to a lesser extent, biracial. and so then when you have basically a system that discriminates against one group, right, and doesn't even accomplish really the stated goals

in which its supporters think it does, then that's where you start to sour on it. [edward] since the court had taken the case, the most important thing that will occupy my time is fundraising and continuing to educate the american public. hello. hi, yoko. i'm happy to help you with-- with your story. colleges should eliminate legacy preferences, preferences for big donors. the potential loss of donations to colleges and universities is a small price to pay for the goodwill and the fairness. if students for fair admissions prevails and the supreme court strikes down the use of race and ethnicity, it will behoove, i mean, it must follow

that harvard will end the use of legacy preferences. it must. - thank you very much. that's very helpful. good deal. thanks, everyone. - god bless. -[edward] bye. - bye. [margaret] i have no idea what that man is thinking. even if you get rid of legacy at harvard, it won't generate a high number of african american and latino students or even asian american students. so you need to keep race-conscious admissions if you want racial diversity. if by diversity you mean a person who has come from a unique background, a person who has certain interests, talents, likes and dislikes, who grew up, you know, in a single family household in an african american inner city neighborhood, those are the elements of diversity, not your skin color or the shape of your eyes or your--the texture of your hair.

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talk to a healthcare provider [tense music building] [keyboard clacking] [sally] social media campaign. that's a little take action. -[sally] kind of nice. - these are great. we should be able to talk race in the classroom. i agree, as a former u.s. history teacher, we absolutely must. -[sally] it's me. (laugh) - oh, that's you! the complex stories in asian america need to be told, and they can't be separated from the impacts of racism in this country. i'm not particularly optimistic about the supreme court ruling in favor of harvard or unc. i think we know that this is an active conservative court that is not afraid to overturn precedent.

- we are saving a lot of these for oral argument. [sally] i know, like, coalition for diverse harvard, they plan to do, like, a big posting of just, like, everybody on their-- hosted on their website. - this is good. we've got a lot. [sally] yeah, we got a good number. on this case, i think the narrative fight is still important. it's important to voice that there are asian americans who are in support of affirmative action, that this may be the death knell for it. but, you know, we don't go down silent. we don't go down without a fight. [playful music] well, today i'm giving a talk to the silicon valley chinese association. and the following week i get one day of respite, and then off to d.c. there are two courts - the court of law, and then there's the court of public opinion. let's put our hands together for - mr. edward blum. mr. blum is the architect of that case. race is not a small factor of a small factor of a small factor.

race plays the predominant role in admissions decisions. i'm here just as a parent. i want to thank you all. mr. blum, you are our hero. - if you look at the rankings of the ucs, they're all--they all go to the lower segments of the ucs. and, you know, i see the sad and disappointed faces in the kids. thank you for your good work, yeah, for helping asian americans. yeah. so be sure and spread the word. i'm gonna give you a business card. if you know of parents who have children that are in high school... - this case is about affirmative action and much more. it's about race. it's about civil rights. it's about asian americans who are neither black nor white, and where do they fit in? where whites might feel uncomfortable, say, protesting. sometimes it feels like pushing the asian protesters, right, to the front of the stage, like they take the blame for, you know, maybe seeming a little anti-black.

- what can you say about the community's opinion on affirmative action and why were some people willing to be used as a pawn for this guy? and i think it's very frustrating that, you know, asian americans are a face of this, that they are a wedge on this issue. yeah, there is some amount of using. but on the other hand, this is what political alliances are all about. you find common cause. i mean, maybe edward may have other motives, but in terms of fighting for asian americans, i'm pretty sure that we're on the same page. if sffa was really concerned about asian americans, don't you think they should ask for relief for asian americans? and that division within the asian american community is something that really needs attention. it is, i think, disingenuous to say asian americans don't criticize affirmative action and don't have any problem with it,

and therefore they're just being used. that is not respecting the diversity among asian americans. [crowd murmuring] - we're... - you're getting there, though. danny was telling me you're gonna have a hearing in october. - my friend. - good seeing you, my friend. yeah, good seeing you. good seeing you. [crowd applauding] so today i'm going to talk about why asian americans must fight for equal education rights. look at history...

- we told you only 5 minutes. - okay. sure, sure. hi. thank you for having me. so today i calling upon all asian american communities come to washington, d.c., october 30th in the afternoon in front of the u.s. supreme court. we're going to have a big rally to speak out, to fight for equal educational rights for all americans. i think that the pattern that you can roughly observe is that newly arrived immigrants who are asian american are more likely to be against the use of affirmative action. i interviewed indian and chinese parents. they were mostly highly skilled immigrants because of u.s. immigration policies selecting highly skilled immigrants. they did quite well in the education systems

of india and china, and those are largely test based systems. the only thing that determines where you can go to college is how did you do on the national exams. and so they're good at that and they bring those skills to the united states. - you need to make school more challenging or else my son will fall behind. i'm sorry. there's not much i can do about a straight-a student. you guys seen it? you guys seen those, like kumon learning centers in those strip malls? right, right. kumon learning centers, for you guys who don't know, are basically detention camps for young asian children. so that's their cultural repertoire, that fairness means a number on a test. [jeannie] right now some people think - i'm against discrimination

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an allergic reaction, or ketoacidosis. [birds chirping] - the supreme court's new term got underway today. the new term will include a number of big issues, including voting rights, lgbtq rights, and affirmative action. [calvin] i'm currently a sophomore at berkeley. i actually just submitted my declaration of the major. so i'm thinking of attending law school after berkeley, um, preferably back on the east coast. maybe harvard. we'll see. interestingly, i think berkeley is actually, like, a really good fit for me.

a, i'm receiving a world-class education. second, in terms of student body, most people i met are extremely talented, motivated and intelligent. - alright, buy in baby, let's go. comparing to people i know who go to, like, ivy league colleges, they're just as comparable and some even smarter. - whoo. - okay. okay. - call it or not? - no. no. - you folded. alright. i targeted u penn and i got rejected. - i targeted stanford and i got rejected. - stanford and i got rejected. duke, i got rejected. - wow, a bunch of rejects here, huh? we all think that, like, the qualifications are much more important than being based on race for admissions. but how do you--how do you determine how much race should be involved and how much shouldn't? i think it should only be based on wealth. by instituting a socioeconomic based admissions system, racial diversity is, first, gonna be obviously preserved. and second, people who are deserving of a chance at, for example, harvard, and because of the fact that they had a disadvantaged background, they could still get it. - i agree.

- i do think that there is a little bit of a way to go until we get to that point when we're able to do that. and i do think the system should be in place to help us alleviate some of the traumas of the past. - i would say that i have really enjoyed my time here, though i do also wish that there were more african american students here. you want a diverse school, you wouldn't want a school full of all one race. but, that being said, i feel like - if we were basing it on affirmative action, there's a high chance i wouldn't even be here. so... - yeah. [calvin] so i'm giving a speech this coming sunday in front of the supreme court. can i wear linen in d.c.? no, probably not. i assume that based on the previous rulings of the judges, that the court will lean towards our favor. i think for this case by itself, that's a great thing.

but because of my political views, i think that that's not maybe the best thing for america. just seeing how, like, evangelical, populist the republican party has become is just mind boggling for me. so that's why right now i think i would more classify myself as an independent or a moderate democrat more than anything. - so why are you still supporting this lawsuit? it's beyond me at this point. i mean, for me, like, again, i don't care right now if i go to harvard or not. i'm-- i'm perfectly happy here at berkeley. but in terms of thousands of other asian american applicants who are marked down because of their, quote unquote, personality or personal attributes or so forth, i just think that's arbitrarily unfair for them. perfect. i think that should work. you cannot remedy discrimination and preferences with new discrimination and different preferences. if asian americans are being discriminated against in order to increase the percentages of whites,

hispanics and african americans, that is morally and legally wrong. the predicate behind what harvard is doing doesn't give them cover to discriminate against any racial group in order to help some other racial group. - when we go to washington d.c., we need to make sure they understand whatever they do in this decision, we're not going to sit back and just accept it. - hey, hey, ho, ho, edward blum has got to go. hey, hey, ho, ho... - my name is sally chen, and it's my pleasure to be here with you all today, celebrating the best part of our society, the diversity of our experiences. - if you just look at the composition of the court in this moment with a latina, with a jewish woman, with the first black woman on the supreme court, justice ketanji brown jackson,

you will know that diversity is our strength and that diversity matters. - when i say defend, you say diversity. - defend! - diversity! - defend! - diversity! and when we stand up for affirmative action, we're standing up for racial justice. i don't want you to feel a shred of imposter syndrome. i want you to know you deserve to be here. you belong. and sffa is fundamentally wrong. [sally] i try to be hopeful there. right? and maybe it's because i'm young, right? affirmative action has existed for... you know, 40 years, 40 plus years, right? i will live for another, fingers crossed, 40 plus years more, right? there is more time to think about what can be better, what can we do. ho, ho, hey, hey. we say no to sffa. ho, ho... - it should be remembered that only a few universities are selective enough to need to use race in admissions. so you might ask, you know, why do they really matter then, in the grand scheme of things, for economic mobility, for giving people opportunities? i think a huge amount of it is elitism and prestige.

but i think once you gain access, it is a door opener. there's no mistake that every supreme court justice we have essentially went to three colleges. they went to harvard, yale or columbia. so when we look at the backgrounds of ceos, they're remarkably similar. these admissions policies really are. that's what they are. they're social engineering. because it's the whole system that this is a zero sum game that, yes, someone has to lose out for someone else to benefit. it's absolutely a zero sum game. they're only gonna admit a certain number of students. i think they should expand their enrollment. that would solve some of these problems, but i don't think that's gonna happen any time soon. so when these schools are deciding who gets in, they're deciding who will have access, who will have access to money, who will have access to resources, who will have access to political power. whether you think it's successful or not, this is what is happening. and that's why we should care about it - that the people who are being selected for admission

are being selected to shape the future. [birds chirping] my best hope what happens is the court recognizes that right now, the way we implement affirmative action has issues with race, but the court will not say that we're gonna ban it.

affirmative action is not the problem, but education is the problem. i don't think that the majority or concurring opinion will write that. but i hope the dissent that sotomayor, for example, and kagan, they will address that education is an issue as well. education is where everything has gone wrong. fix our education system first. fix it so that these students from these poor neighborhoods are starting off on an equal footing, have good schools to go to. don't just fix it at the end. that's already too late. [men chuckling] - in just 24 hours, the supreme court will hear arguments on one of the nation's most politically divisive topics, affirmative action. it's a decades long debate that could take a major new turn now that the high court has a 6 to 3 conservative majority.

- hi, are you yukong? -[yukong] yeah. oh my god. thank you so much. - one nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [tense music] - thank you very much. our parents, they came to the us in order to find their kids a better life. they see harvard and yale and stanford as a way to move up in society, as a way to a better life. - thank you. thank you. thank you. affirmative action, as a system in itself, is a good idea. but as the saying goes, a good idea poorly executed is a bad idea.

[crowd cheering] [natasha] i think the disadvantages of affirmative action are that it is a band-aid approach, right? that we don't have equal opportunities. so we're sort of making up for that through this policy attending to race. [edward] the ancient faith that gave birth to our civil rights laws is the principle that an individual's race should not be used to help them, or harm them, in their life's endeavors. [danielle] the notion that legalized segregation is the same thing as harvard using race as one of multiple factors in holistic admissions is something that i find deeply racist, deeply anti-black, and troubling for the future of this country. 59 years ago, standing in front of the national mall, dr. martin luther king famously said, i have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation

where they'll not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. when people quote martin luther king, right, the idea that, you know, maybe someday we can be race blind, right? but that day would never come if racism still exists. [edward] if you're asking, does racism exist in america? my answer is yes. how do we go about addressing that? we need to address that with a race-conscious solution. [edward] humanity for 4,000 years has always had anti-semitism, and god knows for how long, homophobia.

you cannot cure those conditions with more conditions just like it. [sally] people who don't want to acknowledge the idea that racism is systemic, is maybe kind of counter to the realities that we're facing. why can we drive by a public school today and look at the condition of the building and know what color are the students who are inside that building? that is the legacy of historic racial discrimination and ongoing racial discrimination. america is not a systemically racist country. america's covenantal document is the declaration of independence. the constitution is our body of laws, and those laws were gravely flawed. the 13th amendment rectified those laws. but to argue today that we are as racist

as we were back in the 1940s, fifties and sixties is just--it's absurd. - thank you, edward blum. [crowd cheering] ♪♪ hey! i'll give you $574 if you switch. for an ice cream? okay. so, what about $574 for switching your home insurance to allstate?

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will ask the high court to strike down a 2003 precedent that allows colleges to consider race as one of many factors in admissions. - hey! - hey! hey! - one, two, three...hey! - you can learn! we are willing to teach, babe. [people clapping] you totally slayed. you didn't kind of slay. - in poll after poll, over two-thirds of asian americans support affirmative action. so supreme court, do the right thing. - so we cannot concede any ground to the forces of what can be called regressive intersectionality,

who seek to co-opt our civil rights language and strategies. - they have to feel us. they are in there getting ready. there are lawyers on both sides getting ready. all of them need to hear us. - so let me hear it one more time. - whose court? - our court! - whose court? - our court! so, to ed blum, i would say this. asian americans are not your model minority. [crowd cheering] we are not your wedge. and we will not be used as a tool of white supremacy to turn back the clock on racial justice and civil rights. affirmative action is the floor and we want the ceiling. ain't no power like the power of the people cause the power of the people don't stop! - say what?!? ain't no power like the power of the people cause the power of the people don't stop!

[john] we will hear argument first this morning in case 21707 students for fair admissions versus the university of north carolina. students for fair admissions versus the president and fellows of harvard college. the room was really full. i felt apprehensive, curious. it was a very intense, nerve wracking experience for everyone. [patrick] racial classifications are wrong. that principle was enshrined in our law at great cost following the civil war, a century of resistance to race neutrality followed. but this court's landmark decision in brown finally and firmly rejected the view that racial classifications have any role to play in providing educational opportunities. [john] mr. waxman. [seth] mr. chief justice, and may it please the court. our future as a country depends on having leaders who have enjoyed wide exposure to students as diverse as the nation itself. and so as this court has consistently held,

if necessary, to achieve genuine diversity, a university need not blind itself to race. race is sticky. so one of the first questions they asked is why does it matter? does race have any resonance with anything other than box checking? [samuel] what is the justification for lumping together students whose families came from china with someone, with students whose families came from afghanistan? what do they have in common? what do you learn from the mere checking of the box? you have to be willing to talk about race in the united states very honestly and openly. and many of the justices don't seem particularly interested in some ways or they feel uncomfortable. but i thought justice jackson and justice kagan and justice sotomayor, i thought all did a great job. [sonia] we certainly have de jure segregation. races are treated very differently in our society in terms of their access to opportunity. [patrick] what we object to is a consideration of race and race... uh, by itself... [amy] race in a box checking way

as opposed to race in an experiential statement. [elena] the race is part of the culture, and the culture is part of the race, isn't it? i mean, that's slicing the bologna awfully thin. [patrick] when you use race, you are telling applicants that their race matters, that it means something that is inherently divisive. [ketanji] but they're offering it because they're saying that race matters to me. that vision of what-- how race is considered, that was really at the heart of what many of the exchanges at the supreme court came down to. [john] thank you to all counsel in both cases. cases submitted. [soft inquisitive music] [edward] when the cases were submitted and we all walked out of the courtroom and then down the steps of the supreme court, it was, you know, nearly six hours of intense argument. and for it to end and end in the way it did,

coming away, feeling modestly optimistic, you know, it was a great relief. [crowd cheering] [jeannie] i think that harvard struggled in this oral argument. and part of why they struggled is that they have a harder case in the sense that it's a more nuanced argument. i think the sffa side has a more straightforward argument, which is that racial classifications are just wrong across the board, and that colorblindness is the correct reading of the 14th amendment and of title six, the federal statute. and i think that harvard, of course, has to admit that racial classifications are wrong in some contexts, but not in other contexts. and i think that there's a lot of subtlety in the argument that they have to make, and therefore i think it was just a difficult hill to climb. [quiet hopeful music]

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[birds chirping] get the fastest connection to paris with xfinity. - the supreme court appears poised to put an end to affirmative action. - so what's at stake with the supreme court ruling over race in college admissions? the short answer is, a lot. - everyone is talking about this case all the time. people from departments that are not in the law school are asking me, what day will we hear? so i think there's lots of implications beyond higher education, depending on how the decision is written. if they say that diversity is not a compelling government interest, that noticing race is, per se, unconstitutional, could be devastating for a number of areas of the law. and i think it's been discussed within kind of the conservative legal community that the court has the opportunity here to give a roadmap for future litigation within employment, within contracting, within diversity driven decision making

in the private sector and the public sectors. [soft inquisitive music] [keyboard clacking] [jeannie] while i was waiting for the decision to come out, i was most curious and anxious to see what the supreme court would actually do about the problem of asian americans. asian americans are very inconvenient. it's much more defensible to think about affirmative action in terms of boosting racial minorities like african americans and latinos. once you start talking about the costs for other racial groups,

including asian americans, it makes affirmative action seem less appealing. [michael] the media kept portraying me as someone who was against affirmative action, and i made it very clear from the beginning - i am not against affirmative action. diversity is important in how we grow as young adults. but how? how do we do it without implementing a quasi-quota system? i don't know. you can't claim to support diversity now without trying to maintain a certain percentage of your class that are each race--to ensure that everyone is represented. and that's where i think completely eliminating affirmative action now opens a whole new can of worms. we're like - well, what do we do now? how do we do this? i--i don't know. today i want to discuss affirmative action. we've kind of come past affirmative action. the people who have benefited most from affirmative action have been women who are white. affirmative action has kind of taken on a kind of symbolic meaning in the united states.

it's at this intersection of our beliefs in equal opportunity, picking yourself up from your bootstraps. - ours is a land of immigrants, of people who came here voluntarily seeking opportunity. - i came here with six dollars in my pocket. - because of that 14th amendment. equal protection under the law. so if you believe in it, you believe that this is a corrective that really creates equal opportunity, that corrects our meritocracy, which otherwise isn't fair. what do we do when affirmative action's under attack? stand up, fight back! and if you disagree with it, you believe equally so that this is unmeritocratic, that it's unfair to certain groups. i had to score higher than kids of any other ethnic group. the only other difference between us was the color of our skin. [natasha] all of these, like, very american beliefs kind of come together in affirmative action. how does one discuss this? - you are a--a racist. - you are the bigot. i don't know he's bigoted. do you know he is? - how would it make you feel if you got a job just because you were black, not because you're smart? you got a job just because you're a woman.

the division over affirmative action reflects a really deep and old conflict about what equality means - that everyone is treated the same, or equality demands that people be treated differently in order to produce the equality. this was there from the beginning of the country, and it was there at the inception of the 14th amendment, and it's one that is unresolved. [soft waves crashing] [edward] well, i'm feeling a little nervous. i'm feeling a little hopeful. it's hard to really verbalize the emotions that someone goes through with a case pending at the u.s. supreme court. i'm very busy, which helps. chances are students for fair admissions, if we win our two cases, this organization will turn into not only

a future litigating organization as we are now, but also a watchdog organization. it is likely that colleges and universities will implement policies that are basically direct proxies for race. those policies will be challenged in court, school by school. if sffa loses, that means we've only lost within the public policy arena of higher education. affirmative action affects employment, contracting and election laws. those areas are still going to be litigated. - let's go. -[edward] all right. - come on. let's go enjoy this beautiful evening. - come on. -[edward] come on. let's go. - good girl. [edward] it has been my hope to make what i guess

the industry calls big law. that is, the case that is decided by the supreme court has a wide-ranging effect, not only with that incident, but throughout the country. that a new doctrine is established, new jurisprudence is established, or old jurisprudence is overturned. - shelby county, big law or small law? shelby county, big law. - yesterday, the supreme court struck down a key part of the most important civil rights law ever passed in this country, the voting rights act of 1965. - fisher. -[edward] fisher i, medium law. you can still consider race for purposes of diversity, but you have to satisfy a higher burden. this is going to make it tougher. - fisher ii? - [edward] uh, small law. by a 4 to 3 vote, the supreme court has upheld the affirmative action program at the university of texas.

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in the skin of the perineum could occur. stop taking farxiga and call your doctor right away if you have symptoms of this infection, an allergic reaction, or ketoacidosis. ♪ far-xi-ga ♪ an allergic reaction, or ketoacidosis. - i'm ana cabrera reporting from new york. let's get right to the breaking news at the supreme court. - the court has just issued a landmark ruling on affirmative action. - the supreme court today ruled that the race-conscious admissions programs at harvard and the university of north carolina were unlawful. - the supreme court has invalidated, it appears once and for all, using race in any means whatsoever in evaluating someone's admissions to a college or university in america. - boo! - yeah! i'm half asian, and i think this is all bullshit.

i don't subscribe to the idea that asian americans were just simply, like, being used or weaponized in order to destroy affirmative action. but i did have something close to that feeling upon reading the ultimate decision of the supreme court, that asian americans pretty much dropped out of the picture, having been so important in the litigation over the nine years. it has to do with the complicated politics of affirmative action. - yeah! - woah! - this is absolutely devastating. this will affect people across the country. seems like the majority opinion is untethered from the reality of race in america today.

it's a real setback for our country. it feels like we're turning back the clock. yeah, am i really gonna say this? yeah, i'm really going to say it. um... [sally sighs] maybe it's a funny thing to say, right, as an alum of harvard. i would say that institutions like harvard shouldn't exist. the consolidation of that much resource, that much funding, that much wealth to one place, gate-kept to such a small number of people, you know, is not, i think, conducive to the kind of world that advocates for equitable education would want to see.

i think we need to be asking less how can we get more people of color into someplace like harvard. i think we need to ask more about why does it take harvard for people of color to have success? i mean, this is a choice that we've made in the united states. we have a vastly unequal society and we have growing social inequality. our higher education system, like our society, is too stratified, right? it's too much a winner takes all. the affirmative action decision provides an opportunity to go deeper to address issues like inequality, poverty, and lack of access to resources. and that can end up actually helping racial minorities if it is done right. the outcomes in these two cases really represent the end of the beginning of this fight.

it is not the beginning of the end. [dramatic music]