of equal protection. writing for the majority, chiefjusticejohn roberts wrote that: butjustice sonia sotomayor, who authored the dissent, asserted that the decision rolls back decades of precedent and progress. meanwhile, presidentjoe biden had this to say. i also believe that while talent, creativity and hard work are everywhere across this country, not equal opportunity — it is not everywhere across this country. we cannot let this decision be the last word. unintelligible we cannot let this decision be the last word. earlier, i spoke to us secretary of education miguel cardona on the impact of today's decision.

secretary, thank you so much forjoining us on bbc news. you've written it today's decision was that the country back decades. what impact do you think it will have on couege you think it will have on college admissions? look, i think the decision today took away a very important tool that university leaders use to ensure diversity on campus. students learn best in a diverse learning environment and the supreme court decision took that tool away. however, what it didn't take away is the intent to ensure leaders across the country, that our colleges are made up of beautifully diverse students, much like our country is. let's talk about that intent because the president, as we know, strongly disagrees with the court's decision and he has instructed you to look at ways to look at ways to ensure that student bodies remain diverse. what will you be looking at? as the president said earlier today, we won't let the decision be the last word. look, we're committed more than ever.

as a latino first generation college student, i get it, how important it is to ensure people that don't come from privilege or wealth have access a nd u nfortu nately, there are inequities in our systems that we are working really hard to address. so, what we will be doing at the department of education in the coming days and weeks is within 45 days, we are going to have guidance available to the presidents of universities across the country about what this decision means and what it does not mean. i think it's really important that we parcel out what is in the decision and and what is not in the decision. injuly, we'll convene a national summit of educational opportunity for college leaders and thought partners across the country, responding to the decision that was made today. and then, in september, we are going to release and publish a report that is promising practices on college admissions to ensure that we're learning

from another and that we're staying true to the admission of making sure all students in our country have opportunities to succeed. i want ask about what the plaintiffs have said. plaintiffs for students for fair admissions, here is what one, calvin yang, said. the victory transcends far beyond to those of us sitting in this room today. it belongs to the overachieving son of a recently unemployed west virginia coal miner. it belongs to those with the last names of smith, or lee, chan or gonzalez. it belongs to us who deserved a chance but can now rejoice over the fact that, at least, our kids can be judged based on their achievements and merits alone. so, what do you say to young people who argued against this practice? you know, i respect different perspectives and i recognise that, you know, that the perspective of others should be taken into account

but, you know, if the field were level and it was a level playing field, i could see that. if some people didn't have to work twice as hard to make it to the starting block, i would get that. but in our country, unfortunately, as the president said, there is still discrimination. we still have outcomes that are different based on place — based on race and place, so we have a lot of work to do and i think affirmative action was tool was one that helped level the playing field and i still believe that we have a responsibility to make sure that our campuses are diverse because the learning is better in environments that are diverse. i want to ask about levelling the playing field because the question that has come from the plaintiffs is should that happen at the expense of other groups asian—americans? —— groups, like asian—americans? no, of course, all students should have an opportunity to succeed at high levels. what is happening, and if you look at our country's history, there are students that have been marginalised more,

tehre are some students that have not had that opportunity and this tool was there to provide that levelling. i do agree that all students should have the opportunity. historically, we have not had that everywhere in the united states, which is why affirmative action was so important. when it was repealed in 1996 in california, when it was taken down, the number of black and brown students that attended some of those top universities plummeted by 50%. and there's been some improvement but it hasn't fully recovered yet. so, it is intended for some of these marginalised groups that are not represented as well in our colleges, even with affirmative action. we have numbers from the state of michigan with the new times reporting that after it banned race—conscious admissions in 2006, black undergraduate enrolment declined at the university of michigan and the share of number of black students fell to 4% in 2021 from 7% in 2006. so, what can universities concretely do to maintain diversity in student bodies?

across the country. —— thank you for sharing the michigan data and i think across the country, we have a duty to protect our institutions to prevent that slide across the country. what message are we sending to our students when we see, in cases where it was blocked, they had less opportunity to a ccess ? we will work really hard today — the decision came out a couple of hours ago — and we will look at what it does and does not say, look for opportunities for college presidents and board of trustees to come together around best practices and we are going to provide some. as you have the president say earlier, we're going to look at the ability of colleges to take in, whether it's students' essays on diversity, they can be taken into account. we will have an exhaustive process to ensure we take into account the best practices across the country, publish those and continue to push to make sure adversity is realised on campuses. and really quickly —

a message to students and families paying attention here. we will not stop fighting for you. the biden—harris team, department of education, we recognise the importance of this and we want you to know we need you on our campuses, we want you to apply, we want to see you on a college campuse when it's your turn, and we will support you 100%. secretary, thank you forjoining us. it's been great speaking with you. thank you, sumi. earlier, i had the chance to speak to former governor of massachusetts and former us assistant attorney general for civil rights, deval patrick. governor, it's great to have you on bbc news. the court said in its majority opinion that both of these programmes, at harvard and also at north carolina, "unavoidably employ race in a negative manner, "involve racial stereotyping and lack of meaningful "endpoints". what do you think of that argument? well, i think it's disappointing but not surprising. i mean, there is a right way and a wrong way to do affirmative action — or, at least, that's what the court has said for a long time. the wrong way, you know, involves quotas and set—asides and that kind of numeric and wooden programme.

the right way — at least until today, we thought — was to take race or ethnicity into account alongside preparation and achievement and grit and potential and the very kinds of things that contribute to composing really strong class for a course — or, rather, for admissions to a college. what the court today has said is that any consideration of race seemed to be unconstitutional and, yet, then they go on and say, "if the applicant brings it up "as a part of his or her explanation of their own "background, of their own circumstances and the course "and journey that they've been on, that that's ok," so that's a little confusing, maybe a little hopeful, but i think the rhetoric that you mentioned is what it is. would you encourage students to, indeed, mention their race, bring up their background in applying for universities? well, gracious, how — how can you know? i mean, i read comments in some

of the media today that students of all sorts were saying that their intention in applying to harvard or unc is to mention their ethnic background and how that has helped to shape who they are — and, by the way, not just black students, but asian students, students from rural communities, hispanic students, and so on. that makes sense to me. i think what is sad is that the court has demonstrated just a profound either naivety or unwillingness to consider notjust our history but our reality today around race and if that is, indeed, the problem it has been — it's not the same as it's always been, if it is, indeed, the problem it has been, then curing that problem or solving that problem is not going to happen through denial. ok, so in 1995, you were the assistant attorney general for civil rights in the clinton administration and you, at the time, testified against a bill that would've ended affirmative action,

saying, quote "when it's done "the right way, affirmative action has been shown to be "a sensible, restrained tool to help our society "achieve its goal of equal opportunity and integration". is affirmative action still as necessary to now as you saw it to be back then? well, look, ithink we have a multiracial, multi—ethnic democracy. we know that talent exists in every community in america and we ought to wish to have our institutions and our opportunities as widely available to every member of our — to all of that talent in every community in america. that's all affirmative action has been about — how you reach out and seek and encourage that talent to participate in schools and universities, to participate injob opportunities, to participate in leadership opportunities...

0k. ..and i think that enriches everybody and i think that's certainly been my life experience and the experience of many, many others. several asian—american organisations disagree. the head of one said today, "the ruling will preserve "meritocracy and that affirmative action had made "asian americans second—class citizens". what do you think of that? well, i know that's what that individual said. i think there's some recent polling that shows that is not the majority view, even among asian—americans. there are a wide range of views about affirmative action. we never even start with the question of what form of affirmative action we're talking about. it's simply this notion that, you know, it must all be done the so—called wrong way rather than taking into account that, among otherfactors and features of an applicant's or a candidate's qualifications. it has never, ever been the case that, even at a place

as fancy as harvard, that grades alone or test scores alone told the whole story. they never tell the whole story. they've never been the only thing considered... 0k. ..and if we are about, as i say, expanding opportunity to everyone, they shouldn't be the only things considered. president biden was asked today about the prospect of reforming the supreme court and he didn't seem to indicate that he would support any type of major reform. do you support it? you know, sumi, i've thought so hard about it. i'm a lawyer, i've argued before that court, i have tremendous respect for the institution of the supreme court, so the idea of significant reform is something that, you know, just is very hard for me to wrap my mind around. i have considered some of the proposals that are out there, like expanding the size of the court. i kind of like the idea of, as we do in massachusetts, life appointments

to a particular age. in massachusetts, it's 70. maybe it should be 80 at the supreme court or the federal courts at large. i'm just not sure. i also spoke with republican congressman ken buck. congressman buck, thank you so much forjoining us again on bbc news. in the dissenting opinion today, justice sonia sotomayor wrote the following: what do you think of that? i think it's hogwash. the truth is that asian students are being discriminated against because of this racial inequality in admissions. it is not racial equality to deny admission to better students, to merit — to students that have higher merit in their application, and that's what's happening

to asian students and, to a lesser extent, to white students. i've heard a number that if harvard does away with their — and harvard was one of the defendants in this lawsuit 0 if they do away with their race—based admissions policy, 43% of the students will be asian at harvard. that's based on merit. that's the way it should be. it should not be a system that discriminates against people because of the colour of their skin or their ethnicity or their background in other ways. we want to look at merit and admit people to universities based on merit. what about students who come from a disadvantaged background? so, according to the new york times, after michigan banned race—conscious admissions in 2006, black undergraduate enrolment declined at the university of michigan and the share of black students fell to 4% in 2021 from 7% in 2006. are you concerned that we might see a big drop in african—american attendance at us universities? i'm also concerned with

the graduation rate of minority students at the same universities. i think that there is a focus that we need to bring to k through 12 education in inner cities. we need to make sure that we reduce the influence of teachers�* unions and we need to provide young people the opportunity to succeed. when we've had charter schools in inner city black communities, those students have competed with suburban white schools head to head. those students have excelled in universities. but to take a student who is not prepared and to put them into a university setting and watch them drop out is not a favour to anyone. but congressman, again, don't they need the opportunity to get to the university in the first place? are you worried about a drop in these numbers? i'm not worried about a drop in these numbers but i think what we need to do in america is to focus on the k through 12 education and give people a real opportunity, not a fake opportunity and not an opportunity that comes at the cost of someone else

who has worked harder, who has achieved better grades, who is more qualified and prepared for the university. that's not what we do and that's not what we stand for in this country. we don't want to discriminate against people based on race. we spoke to secretary of education miguel cardona earlier and i want to play to you what you told us. this is what he said. in our country unfortunately, as the president said, there is still discrimination. we still have outcomes that are different based on place — based on race and place, so we have a lot of work to do and i think the affirmative action tool was one that helped level the playing field and i still believe that we have the responsibility to make sure that our campuses are diverse because learning is better in environments that are diverse. what responsibility, congressman, do you think universities have to ensure that there are diverse learning environments? i think universities have a responsibility to teach.

that's what they have an opportunity — a responsibility to do, and teach the best students with the best professors in the best way. they don't have a responsibility to correct the ills of a secondary education system that is at fault for the racial inequality that we see among students applying to universities, and they certainly don't have a responsibility to discriminate against one racial group because they're trying to foster this false idea that there is some sort of equality in grades by admitting various racial groups to colleges. that's a very dangerous path for us to go down. we've been on the wrong path. we should make sure that we have a race—neutral admissions process at universities. if we look, really, just at higher education, what is the right way to address inequalities there? well, inequality in what?

inequality in education? inequality in family background? inequality in community support? what inequality are you trying to address? because the asian student that doesn't get admitted to stanford, doesn't get admitted to berkeley, doesn't get admitted to madison, wisconsin, doesn't get admitted to harvard, that asian student is feeling a great inequality in how they are treated in the admissions process. we know that the white house has instructed the education and justice departments to issue guidance within 45 days on lawful practices going forward for universities. you sit on the judiciary committee. what do you expect to see in this guidance? well, i expect to see the same thing from the biden administration that we've seen in the past, and that is they will violate the law and they will wait for two or three years until lawsuits have worked their way through the federal court system and then, they will have those laws struck down. we saw it with student loans, we're seeing it in other areas.

biden administration has an absolute disregard for our constitution and they will do the same thing here that they've done in the past — they will ignore this decision and they will give advice which will put universities at risk. those universities should be very reticent at looking at what the biden administration thinks the law is and they should rely on their own attorneys because they're the ones that are gonna be footing the bill for these lawsuits that are going to be coming down the road as a result of the biden administration's advice. and congressman, final question — what is your message to young teenage students, particularly from the african—american community, who are concerned that they will might not have the same opportunity to attend university as some of their colleagues from high school, for example? yeah, my advice to them is look at ben carson and look at clarence thomas and look at tim scott and look at thomas sowell, look at so many bright young black students who did very well in this country without any affirmative action help and achieved great things because they worked hard, studied hard, did not violate the law in any way, didn't make

bad social decisions. they made the right decisions and they achieved what they wanted to achieve. martin luther king didn't talk about, "give us affirmative "action". he talked aboutjudging people based on the content of their character, not the colour of their skin, and that's what this supreme court decision does. congressman, thank you forjoining us. thank you. around the world and across the uk, this is bbc news. voiceover: bbc news, bringing you different stories from across the uk. during lockdown, tamara ward, who lives in middle barton, couldn't visit her nephew dominic. it inspired her to organise the run 5k every day in may for dravet challenge. hundreds of people have completed the fundraising runs, sometimes joining tamara and her family. it's a massive commitment. and everyone has said to me the team weree like, it is the third year, it's easy for you.

no, because i know what's coming, it's worse for me. what's nice about it is somebody gets an injury or has been ill for two days, the rest of the team will pick up their kilometres, so as a team, it was really amazing. gallia wilson's son also has dravet syndrome. she's now chair of a national charity supporting families. £240 has already been raised. -- £240,000. it will help families across the uk affected by the syndrome. voiceover: for more stories across the uk, head to the bbc news website. you're live with bbc news. france has deployed 40,000 police office as the country enters its third night of protests and violence, sparked after a 17—year—old boy was killed during a traffic stop in a paris suburb on tuesday. there have been few signs of de—escalation in nanterre, the paris suburb where nahel m was shot. protesters there torched cars, barricade streets and hurled projectiles. france's interior minister

is spending the night at the national police command centre. he says over 400 people have been arrested thus far. 0ur paris correspondent lucy williamson sent in this report. in nanterre today, thousands gathered to mark the void left by one local teenager and the rage that flowed in to fill it. the violence here last night still mapped onto the surrounding streets in ash and debris. nahel�*s mother leading a chant of "police assassins." evan came from a suburb on the other side of paris but the problems there were just the same, he said. translation: we don't have jobs, we don't get hired - if we don't lie on our cv. there is nothing for us. we feel abandoned. and on top of that we get attacked by the people supposed to protect us. this is one offence too many.

the march ended this afternoon in a different kind of protest — burning cars, tear gas, clashes with police. 0ne local resident told us her own teenage son had been mistreated by police and that the violence following nahel�*s death was justified. translation: i wouldn't be surprised if the trouble - continues as long as there are no consequences for this police officer. i'm not in the heads of the young people, but what happens here is justified. the police are the delinquents here, not our youth. parents are doing everything they can. the officer is now in custody and facing a charge of voluntary homicide. france's interior minister said it was time for the violence to stop. translation: last night's riots and burning a school, _ a town hall, a social centre, has nothing to do with what happened in nanterre. those responsible for the troubles should now go home. but no—one we spoke to in nanterre thought

the anger here had run its course. what's fuelling these fires isn'tjust rubbish bins and vehicles but decades of frustration with the french state. nahel�*s death triggers wider feelings of grievance, betrayal, inequality and smouldering cars gets the attention of france's leaders in a way smouldering resentments rarely do. thousands of extra police were deployed across the paris region last night. tonight, those numbers are being multiplied again — symbols of the state providing extra security and extra targets. new developments the pentagon believes a chinese balloon that was shot down over the atlantic coast earlier this year after spending a week in us airspace, did not collect information when it flew over the country. at the time, it was widely assumed to be a spy balloon, and the incident led to further cooling of relation between washington and beijing.

the defence department didn't say what its latest assessment was based on. stay with us here on bbc news. thats all from us here in washington. we leave you with these live pictures of london as we hand off to our colleageus there. they'll be taking over at the top of the next hour. thank you for watching. hello there. at the moment, the weather seems to be changing quite a lot, really from one day to the next. on thursday, we were in cooler, fresher air with some sunshine, a few showers for northern parts of the uk. but on friday the weather's going to look and feel quite different. there'll be a lot of cloud heading our way. it's going to be bringing a bit of rain and drizzle and it will feel more humid as well. and we've seen that cloud beginning to push in on a westerly breeze coming in from the atlantic into western parts of the uk and the cloud will continue to thicken, particularly on those weather fronts which will bring the rain in from the west. but we could start the day with some early sunshine across eastern scotland

and eastern england. don't think it's going to last too long. the cloud continues to stream in on that westerly breeze and it's thick enough to give it a little light rain or drizzle here and there. perhaps things turning a bit wetter through the day in northern parts of northern ireland and into scotland as well. and those temperatures are going to struggle with that cloudy, muggy air, 18 degrees widely, perhaps a little bit higher than that in east anglia and the south east, but nothing special at all. we're going to find those weather fronts taking the thicker cloud and the rain and drizzle away in time for the weekend. and then around that area of low pressure, we've got the winds coming in from the west or northwest and it could be quite blustery through the weekend. strongest winds across northern areas. this is where we're going to find the showers. it'll be sunnier and a bit warmer further south where the winds won't be quite as strong for many. southern parts of the uk may well be a dry day on saturday, with sunny spells further north for northern ireland. also across northern england, southern scotland, more frequent showers in the north and west of the country

where it will be particularly windy and temperatures may be only reaching 16 degrees in glasgow, warm in the sunshine across the east midlands, east anglia and the south—east. 24 degrees here. not too bad at all. second half of the weekend, not too many changes. still some stronger winds in the north. we've got showers, perhaps longer spells of rain in scotland, a few showers for northern ireland and northern england. but further south, better chance of staying dry again and those temperatures getting into the low 20s. so we've got a real difference north south over the weekend heading into next week. it's not a classic summer weather pattern because low pressure is going to be dominating that will bring some showers or longer spells of rain, particularly in the west.

voice-over: this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines and all the main news stories for you at the top of the hour, straight after this programme. welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. brazil is six months into the post—bolsonaro era. workers�* party leader luiz inacio lula da silva returned to power, promising to end what he called years

of devastation of the environment, the economy and social justice.