a very good morning to all of you. it is 11:00 a.m. eastern, 8:00 a.m. pacific. i'm alex witt in for jose

diaz-balart. we begin with a decision from the u.s. supreme court that will have huge implications for colleges and universities and society in general. last hour the justices said schools cannot use race as a consideration when it comes to admitting students. ruling that affirmative action programs both at harvard and the university of north carolina are unconstitutional. it is also a decision that could have implications far beyond education. with us now to take a closer look at this, we have nbc news correspondent julia ainsley, who is outside the supreme court, we have reverend al sharpton there in the center of the screen, president of the national action network and host of "politics nation" on msnbc, as well as maya riley, president of the leadership conference on civil and human rights. welcome to you all on this extraordinary news day. julia, what more did the justices have to say in their decision? >> reporter: well, in short, they have ended affirmative action as we know it.

in the majority opinion, chief justice john roberts says harvard and unc admissions, says those programs cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of the equal protection clause. both programs lack sufficiently focused and measurable objectives warranting the use of race, unavoidably employ race in a negative manner and involve racial stereotyping and went on to say, it is okay for students to mention in their essays how race played a role in their rare, inspiration or discrimination or otherwise. justice jackson said that, you know what, just because the law says that race should not be looked at, that's not how things are in american life. she says that race plays a

factor in american life in innumerable ways and the decision today will make things worse, not better. this is a court that in 2003 said we hope that in 25 years, this was from then justice o'connor, in 25 years, we won't have to look at race when determining college admissions, but right now we do. we're 20 years later, justice jackson saying we still live in that world, but these justices saying, you know what, the 14th amendment, that equal protection clause does not protect the way these colleges are conducting their admissions. even though they do leave a window open, for applicants to talk about their race and how it is impacted their lives in their application process, they will no longer be looking at race as a distinct factor when it comes to admissions. and colleges around the country are going to be reeling today, figuring out how to respond to this landmark decision. >> it is so extraordinary that you bring up that which was decided and the written opinion by justice sandra day o'connor

in 2003. she looked into the future 25 years and envisioning a society where this would not need to be in existence any longer and here we are five years earlier from that point and look what has happened. so my question to you now, maya, what should we take away from this decision? how is this going to have a domino effect, not only for colleges and universities, but let's think about how other schools, k through 12 systems, will try to become race neutral in feeding these schools that will now try to endeavor to find race neutral admissions processes? >> well, first, let's just say that once again this particular supreme court has ignored decades of precedent in its ruling today, including the fact that that statement about 25 years, which came from sandra day o'connor, who had affirmed affirmative action, writing the majority opinion on the university of michigan case was making very clear that that was

her hope, that was not precedent. that was a statement of hope, and certainly an expectation that this country would finally reconcile itself with being a diverse multiracial place where everyone, everyone, no matter their background, would have a full and fair opportunity to learn and be successful. that is not the society that we are in. and, frankly, what the supreme court did today was ignore the fact that one of the things that these methods of admission are doing is trying to take the whole child, the whole student into account and understanding who they were admitting and if you do not do that, you are not being fair to any student, including students of color, particularly black, particularly latino, particularly native american, and low income white students if you do not do that. and ignoring that race is one of the things that shapes whether or not people are getting a fair opportunity in the admissions

process. so we have to understand that. but we also have to take very seriously and tell every college and university, every k through 12 institution, every employer because we're going to watch the right that has sought to weaponize division and drive it, including ed blum, who is behind this lawsuit, trying to claim that somehow if we're benefiting students of color, if we're making sure we're seeing inequity in society, we have done something wrong, and use that to drive division rather than seeing how it brings us together. but here's the thing, part of what the supreme court said is, yes, you can still be your whole self as an applicant. and schools can still look at all of who you are. that means not just in the essay, that means considering factors, context and circumstances that will equalize making sure they're taking into account all that you have jumped through to get to the point of applying. let me make one thing very clear

about why this matters and why we should understand that it still creates a lane for colleges, universities, employers, everyone, which is in our current admissions process, if you can afford test prep, if you can afford private counseling on getting into a college, if you can afford to be at a high school that has cricket, that has crew, that has all these specialized sports, fencing, that most low income urban schools or rural schools do not have, you have a higher likelihood of having that be used to enable your admission and we see one of the reasons why black students in particular are deeply underrepresented in selective schools is because they have none of those things that helps them be more competitive, including the money to show up on a campus tour and get the information and the credit for demonstrating interest in the college

university. that is discriminatory. it has an impact on why we see blacks and also latino students, native americans, underrepresented in selective schools. and that is discriminatory and they can find ways to look at those contextual factors to make sure that they're admitting more students of color. >> you know, listening to maya wiley, she offered a comprehensive analysis of how this is going to affect multicultural communities, but specifically to you, sir, the african american community in this country, you probably anticipated this was going to be a possibility, this ruling overturning affirmative action by the supreme court today. what has gone through your mind in terms of how you believe this will affect specifically the african american community? >> well, i think that this is tantamount to sticking a dagger in our back because what they have said now is that it is

unconstitutional to even consider race and given the racial history of the country, let's not act -- it was against the law for us to read and write until 160 years ago. we were enslaved 246 years. so it is to completely throw to the wind the history of why we needed affirmative action in the first place. secondly, let's remember that affirmative action was a conservative remedy that came out of the nixon administration, written by art fletcher. so now you have a right wing trump court. let's not forget trump nominated a third of the sitting court, nine members, three of which trump put on there, that is saying well, we'll protect the voting rights on thursday, friday, and monday. and then we're going to pull the

rug from under you in terms of you being able to have an even consideration. we're not talking about a mandatory -- a consideration of race to higher education. my last point, my last point that really is frightening to me is now in the private sector, corporations, many of whom made pledges around the george floyd movement, that didn't live up to them, can now say, well, we can't consider race in terms of contracts and employment and board members and what we do in the community because the court now is saying it is unconstitutional. this is a tremendous setback that must be resisted by every corner, including the department of justice and including states because what they have said is that it is unconstitutional to even consider race and i think it is unimaginable not to consider race given the history of this country and given the

data that we still see in this country. blacks are still 10% less in terms of family wealth than whites. we are still less in education. so either you're saying we're genetically inferior, or that there is something that is unequal in society, and it is unequal because of law. it was against the law for us to be able to go to certain schools. it was against the law. that's why rosa parks was arrested. she was not given therapy. she was arrested. the laws were against us, and now the law has turned on us. >> and, let me ask another area of concern and that being something that was by the biden administration, that this may affect the u.s. military in the ability for the development of a diverse and select officer corps for places like west point and other military institutions if this affirmative action has been

eradicated. that is something else about keeping the u.s. military at its most potent, which we need certainly these days. we'll talk about that as well. i want to welcome into the conversation as well jennifer mascot, a law professor at george mason university. jennifer also served as a law clerk to supreme court justice clarence thomas and then judge brett kavanaugh. thank you very much for joining me on this. give me your initial take on this ruling today, overturning affirmative action, was it something you expected? did you see it coming down the pike? >> well, thank you so much for having me. today, six justice majority found that it is not constitutional to discriminate in university admissions on the basis of race and that universities cannot consider race as an independent separate factor. but the court does say at the very end of the opinion that race can be -- it impacted another aspect of your background or circumstance, that an applicant can discuss and university can consider race as it would any other factor, it

just can't be used as an independent basis. and i think one thing here that probably really weighed a lot of the justices and that they took into a lot of consideration is that the application programs they were looking at, in particular they thought according to chief justice today, had some stereotypes about certain racial groups such as asian americans. so, perhaps, similar to some of the discrimination in the early 20th century, jewish americans faced, i think the court felt that there were some stereotypes actually -- particular races and so the court is saying that one race can't be preferenced or beneath another just on that basis. the whole person needs to be looked at. interestingly the court here different from the big blockbuster constitutional decisions last year, and did not squarely overrule precedent. it said that even under its past precedents, that these university programs could not be upheld and perhaps that's why the chief justice today here was writing in a majority for six

justices, in contrast to the decision on roe v. wade last year which had only a five-justice group joining in the reasoning of justice alito's opinion. >> jennifer, let me ask you, you're probably familiar with the country's attitude towards affirmative action, and the fact that the majority of this country wanted to keep affirmative action in place. i realize it is not up to the justices to necessarily look at polls when they're writing their decisions and analyzing the way they're going to think. but should the supreme court now expect fairly so a lot of blowback, two years in a row now, defying the vast majority of americans in their rulings? >> well, even the ruling that a lot of folks adhere to today from about 20 years ago said that hopefully there would be an end point and a point at which we would continue to progress and not have to give such a categorical look or

consideration to one factor in comparison to others. >> jennifer, let me interrupt you now. i agree. that was the hope of justice sandra day o'connor in 2003 that that would happen. it was theoretical, aspirational, not necessarily something that would come to pass, guaranteed, and it has not. so when you say that the hope is, that's fine. but law is not based on hope. so, where does this go? >> well, again, i think a really telling thing here in this litigation was in court for ten years. one of the original attorneys sadly who worked on this litigation passed away earlier this year from brain cancer tragically at a fairly early age, but i think it was really looking at the particular metrics and specifics here of how asian americans in particular are disfavored here. and so the court is saying there can't be a particular group on the basis of race in this country that admissions folks are discriminating against. >> so everybody knows, that specifically is to the harvard

case, that was not necessarily stated in the university of north carolina case. just to make sure everybody knows with which case we're dealing on the asian american situation. >> and then the court, i think, toward the end of this opinion today, which addressed both programs said that like other factors, surely if an applicant has been impacted by race, which i think would encompass some circumstances that reverend sharpton was talking about, that that can certainly be mentioned and that admissions folks certainly can look at that, but as they would at any other factor of somebody's background, like socioeconomic status, perhaps illness of a parent, all of these things that caused terrible hardship and challenges can be looked at, tied to a person's whole application and character. it is just not looking at one factor that is a constitutional violation, isolation is what the court's opinion today i think is saying. i think it is too broad to say that race cannot be considered. i think the court is saying it can be considered along with all

of the other circumstances that might have impacted somebody's personal background in an application. just not given particular individualized weight -- you can't consider race in admissions in a categorical way any longer. >> jennifer mascot, from george mason university, thank you for jumping in and getting in front of a camera and joining us. i appreciate your time and insights. back to the panel, the first question to you, maya wiley, as you listen to her analysis and her very detailed breakdown of how she interprets the court ruling today, do you agree with what she was saying, particularly there at the end, about race not being allowed officially into college admissions, but you can consider other elements in the totality of an application of a student? >> yeah, so, i agree with professor maddox that this court has left room that colleges, universities, k through 12 institutions, employers,

everyone must understand, which there is a way in which we can and still take into account that students of color face all kinds of barriers that frankly are unfair, are systemic to reverend al sharpton's point and can be taken into account and should be. what i will also say is the record really does not support the court's finding and i will say i don't agree with the statement that this is not a form of overruling of prior precedent. 40 years of precedent, including in the michigan case, in sandra day o'connor's opinion, said that, yes, there is a compelling interest in having a diverse campus. what harvard did, by the way, is have a process by which it was taking the whole student into account and everything from academics, extracurriculars, all kinds of factors, but let me tell you one of the things that

happens then in the process is towards the end of the process, they make their recommendations and decisions. so they judged who has the opportunity to have a seat, and basically said yes. then they look at their compelling interest of diversity on the campus. and that same interest, which you pointed out earlier, that president joe biden pointed to was what the military pointed to in the michigan case, that was persuasive to sandra day o'connor, which was we will undermine national security if we do not take race into account because of what we're trying to overcome in this country. and it ignores exactly what the equal protection clause with the 14th amendment was all about, which, again, goes back to reverend sharpton. it was all about not just saying we will pretend a level playing field for black people now because we ended the civil war. it said we actually have to do something to ensure that fair and equal opportunity is truly fair and equal opportunity.

and what currently happens, which is frankly a racially biased impact is that if you're wealthy, if you're white, and if you're an alum, you can basically get admissions and an unfair advantage. that's why we have overrepresentation of white students in these institutions. and that actually works unfairly in a race way and we have to take into account all of the experiences and barriers that students of color and low income students who might be white and from appalachia are experiencing which also keep them out. >> reverend sharpton, i want to read you a statement or just a paraphrasing from the nea, the national education association, which said according to the president there, we're stronger when our country, community, schools and future includes and reflects all of us. how do you worry this ruling will not do so and i'm not talking exclusively about college admissions, but really the domino effect. this could certainly bleed into

the way corporations go about their hiring practices and, again, the military is something that is of great concern that would be directly relative to the college educations and trying to develop those higher positioned officers and the like in -- in our military to keep it diverse. but, you know, this really might extend in a negative way beyond just college admissions. are you concerned with that? >> that was my point earlier. it will bleed over because now you have the top line of this, the headline is to consider race is unconstitutional. and as one who heads the civil rights group, who confronts private sector corporations, as well as dealing with academic institutions, they will now say reverend, i would love to talk to you about it, but it is against the constitution and i cannot deal with this as an

factor. when you say, yes, you can, in an essay for college admissions talk about what you've been through and what race has been, that is nice to put into an essay, but we can't consider it as a factor when we make our determination or decide what we are doing. so we're dancing around the point. the point is that they have in effect practically overturned affirmative action. that's why donald trump is congratulating this and that's why we must have the doj and state attorneys general challenge this and bring cases back up because we need to deal with that, there is no reason if somebody slaps you in the face or sticks a knife in your back for you to say it wasn't that -- they had no business sticking the knife in our back. look what happened when they outlawed affirmative action in california. the registration and enrollment of black students went down dramatically.

so to say this is not effective, going to be effective or affect us either way is going to be devastating if it is not resisted and resisted immediately. let's not play games with this. >> indeed. we also joined the conversation, nbc's kristen welker and kristen is joining us right now from her post at the white house. kristen, have you heard any official reaction from the biden administration? >> alex, we haven't. in fact, they say there is not going to be any official reaction until we hear from president biden himself. we have just learned that he is going to be speaking here at the white house at 12:30 p.m. eastern time. we will, of course, bring those remarks to everyone. he will be responding to this ruling. here's what i can tell you just to take you behind the scenes here a little bit, alex. they have been reviewing this decision. it is a complicated decision as you all have just been discussing. and so i anticipate the president biden will want to reflect in his remarks some of the nuance of what is written in

this very thick supreme court ruling. but i have been talking to officials here in the run-up to today. they have been bracing for this outcome, that this would be a setback or a blow to affirmative action and here is what one source familiar with the administration told me heading into today, quote, president biden supports making an education beyond high school accessible to all americans, as the biden harris administration has reiterated in its brief in support of the universities. the federal government has an interest in ensuring that our colleges and universities produce graduates who come from all segments of society, and who are prepared to succeed and lead in an increasingly diverse nation. they go on to reference the fisher v. university of texas at austin decision in 2016, which dealt with affirmative action, saying, quote, the administration argued during oral arguments then the court should do so again effectively upholding affirmative action, which is not the case and not

the outcome that we are seeing. so i anticipate that we will hear that type of a tone, when we hear from president biden in just a short time from now. and i would also just taking a step back, alex, big picture, talk about the fact that if you talk to administration officials, they stress that this president has really made equity and equality a key priority of his administration. even passing an executive order that prioritizes diversity in some of of the agencies here at all levels. this is something that he has talked about on the campaign trail. and i also think we are seeing the president who is ramping up his campaigning, he's going to be in new york where you are for some fund-raising events, sitting down for that interview with nicole later on today where we'll get more reaction from him undoubtedly. he has not shied away from taking the court as a political matter. the vice president calling the court an extremist court for

overturning roe v. wade. will we hear that type of language? will the president go that far? we'll have to wait and see. bu again, i anticipate that's the type of tone we'll hear from this president and from this administration, alex. >> which as you sagely point out that's about one hour from now and the president has the advantage of having the presidential podium from which to speak. but i know we also heard from former president barack obama. i believe you have a summary or a statement he released in the wake of this ruling? >> reporter: he did. it is a long statement, but let me read you a piece of it. he said, quote, today my heart breaks for any young person out there who is wondering what their future holds. today is a reminder we have got to do the work, not just to enact policies that reflect our values of equity and fairness, but to truly make those values real in all of our schools, workplaces and neighborhoods. now, taking a step back, taking a look at the big picture here,

alex this is an incredibly powerful issue politically. we are seeing people on both sides of the aisle respond, we're seeing some of the republican candidates for president respond including former president donald trump, who, of course, put three conservative justices on the supreme court. the president embracing that, the former president, writing, through a spokesperson, president donald trump made today's historic decision to end the racist college admissions process possible because he delivered on his promise to appoint constitutionalist justices. america's a better nation as a result of the historic rulings led by donald trump's three supreme court nominees. now, in a primary, alex, that type of messaging might be quite popular, but in a general election it gets a whole lot more complicated. there is some polling that shows support for affirmative action as high as 63%. some polling has it lower, around 53% with 42% opposing. bottom line, though, a majority of americans support affirmative

action, support colleges and universities being able to take race and ethnicity into account as a broader set, of course, of factors, because there are so many factors that are taken into account. one more thing i would just note from former president obama's statement. is this. this is from former president obama and mrs. obama as well. the former first lady writing about the experience of being one of the, quote, few black students on my campus. she says, i was proud of getting into such a respected school. she goes on to say the fact is i belonged and semester after semester, decade after decade, countless students like me showed they belonged too. it wasn't just the kids of color who benefited either. every student who heard her perspective, think might not have encountered who had an assumption challenged, who had their minds and hearts opened gained a lot as well. so when you think about what we

are going to hear from president biden, when you think about what we're going to hear from democrats on the campaign trail as we enter and as the 2024 campaign season heats up, those are the types of themes i think you can anticipate as we get more into the heart and the heat of the election season. >> you're 100% right, as always, my friend. kristen, thank you for that. i want to go back to maya wiley now. maya, certainly this ruling has just come down and you may already be thinking of, are there windows of opportunity? i'm going to say perhaps my next life i'll be an attorney, i would like to think i could, but what has been going through my mind, particularly with the unc case is this is a public university. it is supported by taxpayers. so, would there be any sort of a counter to this ruling, a case to be brought up against by saying, look, if you are a

firefighter, a firefighter of color, or a white firefighter, you're going to be paying the same amount of money? a teacher of color or white teacher, you're going to be paying the same amount of money in taxes, are we now not being given an equal platform in which to go to a public university? are we being less considered based on the fact that w have all those things that you outlined so eloquently earlier, we don't have the same cultural community support that other more privileged communities do? would that be an area of pushback? >> so, you know, one of the things i want to say, first of all, that reverend sharpton's exactly right about fighting back hard and part of fighting back hard is exactly as you're saying, alex, looking for every opportunity both politically, socially, and in terms of what colleges and universities, particularly public ones, are doing. there are going to be a lot of civil rights litigators,

including the lawyers committee for civil rights under law, the naacp legal defense fund, aclu, members of the leadership conference on civil and human rights i have the privilege of leading are putting their heads together and figuring this out. so you are going to see continuing efforts to ensure that our students, particularly black, latino, and native american, and asian, are able to get a fair opportunity to learn. this is what we have to understand about the public universities. the selective ones, the ole misses where james meredith literally had to be guarded by u.s. marshals in 1963 when he became the first black person to enter that flagship university in the south and frankly most of the southern institutions have the lowest proportionality in terms of black student representation to residents in their state. that means there are, by definition, not fair opportunities to get in. and for all the reasons we

discussed. so i do think there is room there. and i also want to go back to the larger issue of the point of how people feel about affirmative action. because the support is there because the american public believes and agrees that we are better and stronger when we all have a fair opportunity to learn. and when the program is explained and understood, people support it. when we have, whether it is political leaders or like an ed blum and big dollars that back a litigation whose strategy is to divide, who have to go out and search for and find asian plaintiffs because i want to say, the leadership conference, we had a rally on the day of the oral argument, we had so many students of asian dissent at the supreme court demanding affirmative action. so, for all these arguments from court that is ideologically out of step with the mainstream of

the american public that it is in fact something that asian americans support and we will have leadership saying that today at our press conference. so, the issue is do we want to be a unified country? do we want to have states where its residents can benefit from the same opportunities, no matter what part of the state they live in, no matter what community they come from, no matter or not whether they have been disinvested in and not had sufficient resources in their schools? because the other thing we should note is if you are in a low income public school, you probably have over 400 students to 1 college counselor. if you are white, you are much more likely to have real advice and counseling getting into college. that in and of itself is something that is driven by race, and not solely by just, well, circumstance. >> yeah. let's go right now to nbc's antonia hylton, she's joining us from the campus of harvard

university there in cambridge,a is a tweet posting from the harvard black students association and in short, because it is quite long, they say, we remain committed to defending diversity now and always and it goes on in great detail as one would expect from these intelligent students there at harvard. but, give me a sense of the feel of the campus, the level of disappointment, surprise, how do you read it there? >> reporter: alex, i would describe it as a gut punch, as a bit of a shock. people are still -- the word i keep hearing that people are processing this news still, and that's even with the knowledge for years now that this was coming, frankly. students have followed this case very, very closely from its earliest stages. they knew it was going to wind its way up to the supreme court. and that a result like this was likely. but what i'm hearing is there is still an emotional blow today and this is from students of all backgrounds, not just black

students. certainly they have been making their voices heard about this issue and they have talked about the communities that they have come from. it is really been a multiracial coalition of students here who have been pushing the administration to start planning well in advance of this day. what are you going to do to make sure that our campus is still diverse, that these are still our values? i actually want to bring in one student who i have here with me, augustine, thank you so much for joining me. you're class of 2025. you told me you, to the best of your knowledge, are the only student of ecuadorian heritage in your class. what does this represent for students like you? >> right, i mean, this is literally high stakes for my family. again, i think about, for example, my little brother, who in a few years will be applying to college, my cousin who in the fall who will be applying to college, the people from my community specifically from the state of new mexico where i am one of two students from new mexico in my school here. so this has immediate impacts.

>> reporter: what is your hope in terms of what happens next? the kind of action the school can take? >> i hope that harvard as soon as it can ramp up undergraduate recruitments of underrepresented minorities, so i think that to me looks like going out to communities in new mexico who are indigenous, recruiting students of all nationaliies and backgrounds to come. and i think it will be more difficult now. >> reporter: often in terms of the political conversation, this can break down to be very black and white. students or people described this as a zero sum gain where students from one background or another background competing for a certain number of seats. what is it like on campus when students of different backgrounds discuss this issue? >> i think it is about leveling the playing field. it is about specifically highlighting that affirmative action provides access to

students from all communities to apply. i think that, you know, i see so much solidarity with other organizers from so many communities and we always talk about how affirmative action uplifts our communities and encourages our communities to dream about attending these colleges and now i think that is going to be a much tougher time. >> reporter: do you think harvard is going to look different? >> i really, really, really hope that the efforts they put in place stop it from looking different. but i am a little scared. >> reporter: how optimistic would you say students are right now? >> no, i mean, this sent shock waves within the community. i'm specifically a board member of force latino and the moment the decision went live, the community reacted and we're definitely still processing. >> reporter: thank you so much, augustine. i appreciate your time. thank you for joining us. >> of course. >> reporter: and what you just heard him say about dreams and students, you know, aspiring to

apply in the future, that's a really interesting and often sort of undercovered point here because you point to systems like uc in california, state system that more than two decades ago did away with affirmative action. and they saw at many elite schools, all taxpayers of all backgrounds pay into, that minority enrollment fell by about 50%. that's minorities of all backgrounds. and not only did admissions fall, but also the number of students of those backgrounds choosing to apply fell and what you heard from experts who talked to these communities, who have gone out and tried to come up with programs that would ameliorate these changes, what they found is that students felt this sent them a signal, oh, you don't belong here. that's the concern now for many of the students of all backgrounds i've spoken to, black students, latino students, native american, native hawaiian students and low income asian american students who are worried now that in a world in which perhaps people will depend more on test scores or on grade

point averages to determine the makeup of their classes, that students of certain backgrounds may not get a second look at their applications and might just need to rethink where they apply, full stop. so how all of this is going to reshape universities like harvard, of course, remains to be seen. but really across the board, what we're hearing right now is that people are expecting these fundamental shifts in culture. and potentially, you know, for those ramifications to be seen well beyond the elite schools that were at the center of these cases here, alex. >> and it is extraordinary, you think about the size of a class of harvard, i know they rarely if ever go per class over 2,000 students, it is usually somewhere in the realm of 1600 to 1800 within the class, the full body makeup. to think that i believe augustine said there were only two students from ecuador. it is extraordinary to think already that is somewhat diminished. and to his fears that even fewer would be admitted. you bring up the very good point

and i'm going to actually pivot now as i welcome nbc news senior legal correspondent laura jarrett and nbc news legal analyst joyce vance to the conversation. just anecdotally before i get your legal analysis, laura, she brings up good point about how things like test scores that are admitted in applications, a lot of privileged kids are able to pay for tutors, tutoring, focusing on that kind of thing. you're a mom. you'll be thinking about this at some point. you have a ways to go, i'll grant you, but being able to afford tutoring so you get a more comprehensive approach to your testing and will do bester on the tests, if now applications into schools will be further dependent on those than before, that is an uneven playing field right there. and that's one incremental aspect. >> this is why the schools that i have talked to and anticipation of this decision, they were bracing for it, and it is why the schools have said what you're really going to see now is who cares about diversity

and who doesn't. which schools really are ready to put their money where their mouth is and what i mean by that is one of the things that came up at oral argument is that harvard maintained its legacy admissions program. if your mom or dad went to harvard, you get a little bump. you don't automatically get in, but you get a little bump. judge gorsuch said if you care about diversity, why do you still have a legacy admissions program? wouldn't that level the playing field? and so far it doesn't appear that harvard has been willing to get rid of it. now, it could decide to do that, of course, and many schools have decided, like amherst college decided it is getting rid of that, but it is interesting to see which schools decide to get rid of things that added billions to their endowments, but would perhaps level the playing field if they got rid of bumps or pluses like that if they can't use race in exactly the same way anymore. certainly schools have gotten rid of the -- and now they have

to be more creative, but i do think the way that the court has gone about this, and certainly the way that the chief justice has written it is going to lead to further litigation, alex. they basically said if you want to write an essay about how being black in the south side of chicago has influenced your life, go ahead and do that. but the school has to look at it in a wholistic way, can't use this a check the box exercise. the school will tell you we never have been using this in the check the box exercise and the court disagreed and didn't believe them. >> and i'll get back to your legal analysis of all this. as i bring in joyce vance, joyce, give me your sense because you were affiliated despite your excellent and diverse background in law, you are affiliated with the university right now with a law school. how much do you believe that race or do you know that race has been a considerable factor with admissions to a law school? this is going to have an effect

not only to just undergraduate programs, but well beyond. >> before these decisions came down today, race was one of the considerations that colleges, universities and schools like the university of alabama law school where i teach, one of the package of considerations that could be looked at in making decisions about admission. it was a holistic approach, race was not a binary choice that led to admissions at any university. but what laura is talking about is a key point here. the supreme court left a very narrow avenue where institutions of higher education have the ability to take a look at the an applicant's race. if you write an essay where you talk about challenges you overcame, that's an individualized consideration that this court says that those schools can still consider. but what you can't do is engage

in a larger exercise of considering race. so while one hopes that institutions will continue to ask these questions, look at these sorts of essays, i think laura is dead on the money, she says there will be more litigation, there will be more of an effort to narrow this use. justice jackson's dissent is extraordinarily powerful in this regard, alex. if you don't mind, i wanted to read a couple of sentences that i think make her point. she writes, gulf sized race-based gaps exist with respect to the health, wealth and well-being of american citizens. they were created in the distant past. but have indisputably been passed down to the present day through the generations. every moment these gaps persist is a moment in which this country, this great country falls short of actualizing one of its foundational principles, the self-evident truth that all of us are created equal. her words are very powerful,

they come almost 60 years after the stand in the schoolhouse door at alabama, at the university, where segregationist governor george wallace declared segregation now and segregation always. that's only the span of 60 years. it is hard to believe that people have made the sort of gains in society that mean that we no longer need to consider race, not as a way of giving people a leg up or a special advantage, but as a way of leveling the playing field to ensure that the american dream is realized for everyone. >> indeed, and you write about -- you read part of the extraordinary dissent there by justice ketanji brown jackson. that was directed to the unc case, she recused herself from the harvard case, having served on the board of the harvard overseers for some time. so, conscientious and likely very appropriate step of her recusing herself based on potential conflict of interest. so, as we go back to you, laura,

joyce's showing that, yes, indeed, there will be a number of people, also maya wiley said you got all sorts of civil rights litigators thinking how do we push back, where are there small holes in which we can now come and try to counter with lawsuits to this particular judgment? do you see any obvious ones that you think, okay, this we can actually maybe drive a truck through? >> well, part of what is happening here is to remember the record on which the court is deciding this, right? they're facing two lawsuits where the allegation is not just that black and latino applicants got a bump, but that the schools were explicitly discriminating against asian american applicants and i do think that that factored in at least on the face of this case, and in a meaningful way. it certainly hadn't been the allegation in prior cases where the court had explicitly upheld the use of affirmative action and use of race as we had currently -- as we had

understood it going back to 2003. to the extent there are schools not accused of discriminating like that, but do take into account race in a nuanced, wholistic, individualized, nonmechanic, nonquota-based way, i think there is some room there. again, going to largely depend on who is the court when that gets teed up. remember, they had been at this for quite a while. the group that filed this, by a conservative financier, has been at this for decades. this is his life's work to go after affirmative action. and they managed to get it at a point in time where the makeup of the court is particularly sympathetic to it. >> extraordinary. we have another voice to add to this conversation, joining us right now is lonnie chen, the stanford university director of domestic policy studies as well as a research fellow at the hoover institution. so highly regarded. really revered on the campus. your initial reaction to the ruling today, expected, shocked,

surprised, disappointment, describe your reaction, sir? >> it is not a surprise, i think given the composition of the court. i think this is what we expected to come out. i think the various elements of the decision again relatively predictable, essentially looking at the practices of these universities calling out that they believe are elements that are violative of the protection clause, obviously certain elements as well with respect to trying to allow for the individual, i think one of your guests made this point, trying to allow for the individual applicant to be able to express their story and if race is a part of that, you asked about exceptions to the rule. if race is a part of that story, my sense is that there are avenues and lanes where that can continue to be a factor. but, look, in the overall decision-making rubric here, what i would come back to is the court has had a very tortured history on affirmative action.

it had a very complex view of this issue. if you go back and look at decisions, whether from the original supreme court decision that spoke on affirmative action, gruder against bollinger which came in the 2000s, if you look at that line, what you will see is some really tortured efforts, i think, to fit the prevailing view on affirmative action into a constitutional structure. and what this case does is i'm not sure it makes things easier, but what it does try to do is harmonize some of that and try and walk some of those lines and over the next couple of years, we'll see how successful the court really was. but the decision in and of itself was not a surprise. >> you make a point about how there will be some aspect of race still allowed on a -- on a college application. but how? can you give that to me practically speaking? i mean, yes, you can write an

essay. i've spoken with college admissions staffers in the past. it is a voluminous job. it is impossible. when you think about how many get accepted, how many applications, i mean, how fair is it going to be? they say the supreme court says, look, we can still consider it to a degree, but if you're unable to check a box, how confident are you that applicants will be seen for their racial diversity because you're going to have to dive even further into these applications to figure it out. >> well, i think part of what the court is trying to >> part of what the court is trying to do is to say when you look at an individual's story, that story needs to extend beyond their racial background. it needs extend to the neighborhood they grew up, their socioeconomic factors, religious issues, to different elements that make up an individual candidate. harvard's goal -- if you look back to the way harvard tried, at least in theory, to articulate its standard of

admissions, what harvard has tried to do is to look at the individual applicant holistically. they run into trouble with respect to asian american admissions. that made this case more challenging for advocates of affirmative action. what the harvard plan had been was to try to see an individual for their entire background. your question about how that actually comes to fruition, we're going to have to see. some universities have a variety of qualitative measures. for example, you can write an essay. you can articulate your answers to certain short-form questions. universities are going to have to figure out, how do they try to get at the individual story? what is clear is what the court has said is that the explicit use of race as a factor, the explicit use, the question regarding race and the determination of that as part of the process, that strictly

understood needs to end. they have to figure out how they assess what an individual brings to the table in a holistic form. >> okay. thank you for weighing in on this from stanford university. this has had a ricochet affect. we have heard from republican presidential candidate and former vice president mike pence. he made a surprise visit to ukraine. he has addressed this breaking news from the supreme court as well. let's go to dasha burns who is traveling with pence. she's joining us from kyiv. talk about what mike pence had to say. >> reporter: alex, mike pence makes this visit here to ukraine at a significant moment with all of the news about the wagner group, prigozhin, the internal conflict going on inside of russia. he makes this visit to make clear his support for ukraine and his message that he believes that the united states should be

involved in leading the support for ukraine in this war, which makes him somewhat unique in his party, especially when it comes to his fellow candidates on the campaign trail. as you said, he is the first gop presidential candidate to make this visit in this election cycle. he might be the last. you have former president trump who has a history of praising and defending putin. you have ron desantis who has really waffled on this issue. you have republican voters, according to an nbc news poll, who are questions whether they want to see the candidate they support send funding to ukraine as one of their policy positions. this isn't necessarily the kind of campaign stop that he is using to -- that will necessarily help him court republican primary voters. but he has carved out this as his platform that he really believes in this cause and in this issue. while we were following him today, we also had a chance to

ask him about the breaking news out of the supreme court on affirmative action. here is what he had to say. the supreme court just struck down affirmative action. what is your reaction? to what extent do you think race should or should not be taken into account? >> i'm grateful to see the conservative majority we have built on the supreme court of the united states bring an end to most of affirmative action. we want to live in a color blind society. there may have been a time 50 years ago when we needed to affirmatively take steps to correct long-term racial bias in institutions of higher education. but i can tell you, as the father of three college graduates, those days are long over. i'm grateful today that the supreme court took us one step back to that america that will

judge every man and woman on the content of their character and on their own achievement and leave race out of the consideration of admissions to higher education. >> reporter: alex, while his sentiment on affirmative action is somewhat echoed for the most part by the rest of the republican party, it is this issue of the war in ukraine that is really becoming a wedge issue for the gop. there's a lot of division in this party about how this should be handled. it's not an issue that maybe five, ten years ago would have been something the party would have been split on. when i spoke to pence, he talked about the reagan doctrine of foreign policy. in many ways, as he was speaking, he was speaking to a republican party that is not necessarily the party of today, as you listen to some of the comments from his rivals in this race. this visit to ukraine really highlighting some of the starker

divisions within the gop when it comes to foreign policy. >> yeah. dasha, i want to read the tweet vice president mike pence put out. he gave you his answer, but in another way he took it a step further in this tweet. there's no place for discrimination based on race in the united states, and i am pleased the supreme court has put an end to this egregious violation of civil and constitutional rights in admissions processes which only served to perpetuate racism. i'm honored to have played a role in appointing three of the justices that ensured today's welcomed decision. as president i will continue to appoint judges who will apply the law rather than twisting it to serve woke and progressive ends. since we are talking about him in the presidential candidate factor, let's read what donald trump had. let's read it. he says --

i think there will be many people who take umbrage with what he said. that said, tell me quickly what the plans are for the vice president. he is there currently -- or former vice president, i should say, mike pence, does he stay there in ukraine? is he going to meet with troops and the like? do you know? >> reporter: we have followed him for the entire day. he arrived here very early this morning in kyiv. he went to several different parts of the area around kyiv that was impacted -- that were impacted by russia, that were

occupied by russia, that were destroyed by russia. he saw the destruction. he met with families whose homes were destroyed. he did meet with president zelenskyy. we were in the room when they first shook hands. of course, the last time he met him, he was in an official government position. now he visits as a private citizen. to reiterate his support, he will leave the country -- or leaving kyiv later this evening, but a full day of touring the areas to see firsthand how much russian aggression has impacted this nation. >> okay. dasha, you say that he is going to be touring through the country. but do you know if he will meet with anyone in the military, anyone who has been on the front lines, military leaders within ukraine? >> reporter: he has met with ukrainian officials. zelenskyy and his top advisors. >> thank you very much for that,

dasha burns, from kyiv. we have had a number of extraordinary people coming on and weighing in from a legal perspective. we always count on steve kornacki to give us a sense of how people are feeling with your poll numbers. give me a sense of the reaction, steve, to what has gone down in a big way from the supreme court. >> we will see what it brings. this is a topic that's been polled extensively through the years. a couple of patterns emerge when you look at the numbers over the years on this. basically, the pattern is this. the more broad, the more general you ask a question about affirmative action or about programming to try to enhance and increase diversity, the more support. the more specific you get with hiring decisions, the less popular it gets. you have probably seen this number thrown around a little today from our nbc news poll in april. we asked about affirmative action.

is affirmative action still needed as long as there are no rigid quotas? there's slight majority support, 53%. that's a change if you go back a decade. a decade ago, it was 45%. it has increased over the last decade when you ask about affirmative action with no rigid quotas. when you ask about admissions programs that are designed -- sorry. back to you. >> we are certainly on a tight schedule. thank you for jumping. we thank our reporters, analysts and guests who joined us for the ruling on affirmative action. andrea mitchel is next. right now on "andrea mitchell reports," a groundbreaking supreme court decision today, limiting affirmative action in college admissions. all six conservative justice