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

that aside, it's as emphatic anm definitive as conservatives hoped and progressives feared.

it's the way that the 14th amendment was color blind, jackson and others, nonsense., look at what the 14th amendment achieved. brown versust board of educati, likewise. nonsense says the dissent. it was race sensitive. the 14th amendment must be race sensitive. then there's this world s worl viewpoint, there they are like t ships passing in the night. one side says, look at the worlt today and whathe needs to be do. the conservatives, the law of the land, say ending discrimination means ending all discrimination, period, paragraph, end of story. yes, there will be a tiny little wormhole that people will push h on. the basic thrust of what the majority has done -- it's as

emphatic as the dobbs opinion last year -- is to really have a revolution in the meaning of thl constitution and socially permissible ends as a result. >> laura, for a long time, quotas have been not permitted. since 1978 and a decision in 2003, justice o'connor was an important voice on that, using race as a factor was considered constitutional because of all of the years of discrimination. now they are saying that there s has to be an end point to this, the way they did in 2013 with t voting rights. everything is going to be fixed at some point in history, which does tend to ignore legacy admissions policies. those have not been challenged.d that i know of. alumni children, grandchildren,l nieces, nephews get preferences, which builds in preferences for

majority white communities. >> that was actually thrown back in their face. the schools deciding to keep those policies was actually, i t think, one of the reasons theyu had a hard time at oral argument defending their programs, because theing justices were saying, if you truly cared about diversity and you wanted to even the playing field, get rid of legacy. get rid of that and risk cutting into your endowment a little bit. get rid ofa li standardized tese get rid of these things that theyse think of as race neutral to use the terms of the court. but the schools at least to date haven't been willing to do that. that's why for many places -- and i think president-elect holly can speak to this.n sp this is why you will see who cares about diversity, who rs really decides, you know what, we have been doing this one wayt all along but now we have to w v change because of the way the ec court has constructed this decision. i think it'sd this interesting,

mentioned they have accepted military, a carveout buried in a footnote. it's interesting to see how the court has sort of under roberts gone about making these big moves, even though he is not h saying he is overturning the key decision upon which all of the current admissions programs are based and using race as a plus factor as you mentioned, he hasn't said i'm going to overrule it, but everyone else e seems to agree he did.e the dissent certainly thinks he has. justice thomas thinks he has. he doesn't seem to want to go n there. you wonder why. g why not just say it if that's what you are doing? >> do you think it's because he does not want to position wanto himself as overruling precedent? >> it seems like it's hard to square that with the practical implications of what you have done.al the whole point of the court in a time as we find ourselves where institutional legitimacy

is being questioned, why not be clear about what you arest doinb on an issue of such importance? >> jennifer, what is your reaction to the decisions and to chief justice choosing to write the opinion instead of alito or thomas? >> yes.r well, today six justices joined the majority in full here finding it's not constitutional to discriminate on the basis of race and race can't be used as an independent factor in isolation. somebody can talk about race as impacting their character or thc quality of their credentials. it can be looked at in that way as you look at any other aspect of an individual's character.ini it's not dudisfavoring race ove other characteristics, but it's not raising it up as a separate basis as well. the constitutional violation. it's interesting that in contrast to one of the big constitutional blockbuster opinions of last term, the dobbe opinion, the court does not squarely expressly use the

language of the opinion today. unlike the dobbs opinion last year that justice alito wrote and chief justice wrote st separately to say he thought the decision could have been the judge -- the judgement could have been consistent, here the o chief justice keeps the opinion, writes for six. six the court tries to make more of a show of being consistent on affirmative action and says iv under the standard, the programs don't measure up.t >>me jennifer, you have clerkedv the court. you clerked for judge kavanaugh when he was on the appeals court right under the court as well. they took a long time to reach this decision. rea the fact theych took the case indicated they werey going to they had reasons to want to takt a hard look at affirmative action or they wouldn't have o taken these cases. do you think there wase a lot conference discussions, trading opinions? they took time toad reach this. we know justice jackson was recusing herself on the harvard case because ofth her involveme

with harvard university in the past.f he >> certainly. these cases were argued, i think, in november or december. this is not unusual.unusual. often the court has these big decisions that people are waiting for and keep them until the end of the term.he justice thomas wrote separately to explain how he believes the decision today was consistent with how the 14th amendment has been understood. be justice enkavanaugh in contrast wrote to talk about how he concludes that this opinion today is consistent with past precedent. in general, at every level this case has been considered, i think judges have taken a very careful look. tragically, one of the lead attorneys on the case at the beginning passed ataway earlier this year from brain cancer. when folks arein looking at universities like this with w wonderful reputations who are educating a lot of leaders in of our society, they will take a

careful look and evaluate the constitution and try to figure out now, more than 100 years after the 14th amendment was mee ratified, how it applies to challenges being brought today.t >> laura, danielle, harry and yn jennifer, thanks to all of you. joining us now is democratit congressman from california khanna. when california banned using race as one factor in admissions, the admissions of black students, other students of color, declined dramaticallyd >> andrea, what isn't being talked about enough is the harm this is going to do for students, not just black and latino students, but white and asian american students. consider students going to harvard who want to become the future political leaders in this country, the future president, senators, congress people. do you think they will have a better chance of hedoing

successfully if they don't have adequate representation? will they understand the rsta country?nd if someone wants to be ceo of google or apple. o i can tell you from talking to those ceos how much they have tv interact withe people in every diverse community. you are doing a terrible disservice to the future leadere of the country in a multi-racial, multi-ethnic democracy. >> how do you see universities now trying to tailor this? >> he said they can talk about race in their personal essay.al i imagine that they will try to have a more qualitative assessment on essays to comply with the supreme court. they will haveo co to look, as discussed earlier, about not having as many legacy admissions, not having as much reliance on standardized test scores.

i understand the sentiment there. what i say to people in my district is, many people in then asian americant community wouldn'tas have been in americai it weren't for the civil rights movement. my parents probably wouldn't r have been in p america.arenhave the civil rights movement led to the 1965 immigration reform act. that's what allowed people from asia to startro immigrating to o united states. we owe an enormous debt to the civil rights movement. >> it was lbj in 1965, right after the passage of the voting rights act and the fair housing law and other major cases that gave a big speech about the importance of diversity and affirmative action. do you think at this stage that colleges can find ways to, as ys you point out, standardized tests, not to use the standardized tests, which clearly advantage those schools those kids who come from schools that have all kinds oftutoring

and special prep.pr >> iep think they can move away from standardized tests. s they can talook at a person's essays. roberts says you can talk aboutc race as part of your life. the reality is, race matters. race is consequential to ntia people's lives. if we are being honest about the adversity folks face, the challenges they overcome, they will talk about race. i think that the colleges are going to have to figure out how they do that while being consistent with the court decision. from talking to university presidents who expected this decision -- it's not a surprise -- they are candid that this is going to be a challenge. their concern about the leaders that they are going to be producing for american society, they know this country is 60% white, non-hispanic, it's nic, ' incredibly s diverse. race continues to be a

polarizing issue, dividing our nation. they aredi concerned whether th will be able to expose people to all of the diversity in this country that's necessary for un them to produce great leaders. >> congressman, thank you very much. >> thank you.essman, harvard is crimson. the supreme court taking a red pen to the kiuniversity's affirmative action ppractices. we are live coming up next aftca this short break when "andrea mitchell reports" returns in 60n seconds. stay with us on msnbc.ay with u. pepcid complete works fast and lasts

for powerful heartburn relief. with an antacid that starts working in seconds- and a acid reducer that relieves occasional heartburn all day. other brands can't do both. pepcid complete. harvard university is one of the schools at the center of today's supreme court decision against affirmative action in college admissions. harvard's was considered the gold standard. joining us now from harvard's campus, nbc news correspondent antonia hylton. how are they processing the news there? >> reporter: the word that i

keep hearing is that people are feeling like it's a gut punch. they are in the midst of processing it. that's even with the reality they have been expecting this, dreading it. that's another word i heard. we have known since the very earliest stages of this lawsuit it was going to wind its way to the supreme court and this was likely going to be the outcome. what's on students' minds is what happens to future generations of different kinds of students from all sorts of backgrounds who are interested to applying to harvard and other schools impacted by this ruling? i have a high school student who is very soon going to be applying to college with me. vincent, thank you so much for making time to join us. tell me, how are you processing this? what does this decision mean to you? >> this is bad for me. i feel like right now that they are banning -- i feel like it's taking -- right now it's only my college essay and my resume that they are asking for. normally, because it's for my

personal background -- it's taking away that part of me, a really big chunk of me. only my resume and my college grades that determine -- it's a big factor of me going to college. it's really bad for me. >> reporter: has this added anxiety for you? >> it does. it gives me a really big anxiety, because i feel like if you are putting only the college grades and only -- just a little part of personal information, because i want to go to college a full me. i want them to know where i'm from, me being a black person. also i want college to know about every single black person. >> reporter: what are your concerns about what college campuses might look like in the

future? >> right now, they ban it, it's going to be really bad, especially for black people. my friends, them they are affected by it. they are not happy. right now, they are giving the white people and white students higher chance again. i feel like if they ban it, it's just basically going to be like the black people -- they will have a lower chance of getting into the colleges. first of all, after getting the scholarship, i feel like letting them know so much information about us, how we came from the low end and up there, because i'm trying to become a lawyer. how am i going to do that if we don't have my personal information? all they have is my grades and just a little information about me. i feel like it's going to be

really bad for the students coming in to senior year to go to college. >> thank you so much. i appreciate you sharing your story. good luck as you apply to school this year. i went through it. thank you. that's part of the story here that i have heard as i talk to students. they looked in particular at the uc system, where more than two decade ago they did away with affirmative action. they saw in the public universities about a 50% drop in minority admissions. then also, a reduction in the number of minorities even applying in the first place. that's the part that's hard to quantify. what message does this send to students? how will it change their application behavior and the dreams and the places they imagine themselves attending? we have colleagues who have been at unc's campus having very similar conversations. take a listen to some of the messages from students there.

>> i think a lot of students are not going to be able to get the opportunities that should rightfully be available to them. there's a lot of really talented and amazing students that have had to face a lot of barriers that are not their fault. affirmative action was one of the only educational policies that was out to be able to start to even the playing field for a lot of these structural oppressed minority students. >> we are currently creating a petition, just trying to increase diversity on campus and even across the faculty as well. >> reporter: here on harvard's campus, a multi-racial coalition of students that involve black student organizations, latino student organizations, asian american organizations, they have been meeting with administrators to push them. what are you going to do? are you going to get rid of legacy admissions to make more space for students of different backgrounds? are you going to send people out into certain communities and talk to students from black communities, from indigenous

communities in the united states and talk to them about harvard, get them excited and make them feel like they will still be represented? there's attention turning to the administration. what are you going to do? that's the question on their minds right now. >> thank you so much, antonia hylton, for -- fascinating insight from the students' perspectives. the affirmative action decision is a legal blow to generations of leaders who have fought in universities for decades for programs that boost minority student enrollment, because it improves educational excellence for everyone. joining me now is the president of columbia university, the former president of the university of michigan where he was a key figure in the 2003 supreme court decision we have been talking about, upholding the use of racial preferences to promote diversity, the longest serving ivy league president, who will transition out, but who

has more experience on this than anyone. it's great to have you here. talk to me about how broad you are concerned -- how broad is your concern that this will effectively do what it has done in california and michigan, where bans were in place, really reduce diversity in the admitting classes. >> i think we're all still digesting the opinion. it was very long, 236 pages. based upon a quick reading of this, i think one has to say, this effectively overruling the decision which was the landmark decision that commanded a majority of the supreme court. chief justice roberts doesn't say it's overruled. but the standard that's put forward, i think, accomplishes that. the effects on higher education, i think it's somewhat

complicated. glad to talk about the nuances here. but i think we have to start out with the sense that this is a very serious change. from my point of view, a tragedy. in the effort this was country and of higher education to try to deal with racial discrimination that has, of course, been part of our history and continues in various forms. the educational benefits of having students from different backgrounds in attendance. we know, as you indicated from the california experience and the michigan experience that there is a very significant decline in diversity -- racial and ethnic diversity. i'm sorry to say that i think that will be the immediate consequence. then the question will be where the court go from here on a variety of admissions policies that might begin to correct

that. >> in a statement -- your university put out a statement that diversity is central to the identity of columbia, which is the case in many schools. certainly many of the ivy, in terms of academic excellence. diversity is a positive force across every dimension of columbia and we can and must find a path to preserve it. there are workarounds. one thing that students have raised is -- and activist groups have raised is the legacy issue. if you got rid of legacy, you would eliminate in some cases 50% of the class, which represents generations of privilege that gets handed down. it does certainly increase endowment to have longstanding families in contrast to minority families. >> i wouldn't accept that number. universities vary in the degree

to which they take account of the fact that the parents of the applicant have gone to the college or the university. the legacy issue is important and i think really worthy of serious discussion and debate. itself very complicated. but i think it would be a misjudgment to think that the way to grapple with what the court has now set the country -- the course it set the country on by getting rid of legacy -- that is not going to work. you are simply not going to get more racial and ethnic diversity through elimination of legacy. it's just not going to have that kind of affect. that's, i think, a misdirected concern. >> what about standardized

tests? >> here is where i think we have to concentrate. where i think there's a very important moment. we know that standardized test scores were introduced many decades ago with the idea that they would help achieve equality of opportunity for students all across the country. it wouldn't depend upon connections, wealth of your family, et cetera. you could take the test, and if you did better than people who were well connected and wealthy, you could get in. that was the idea of standardized tests. increasingly in the past decade or so, it has become fairly clear to everybody that standardized test scores are a way of reinforcing inequality rather than overcoming it. during covid, many universities,

columbia included, made standardized test scores optional in the admissions process. we have real experience with admitting classes that are not based upon standardized test scores. and i think the outcome of that is a realization that our classes are just as great as they were before, and we may have arrived at a judgment that standardized test scores should be given much less significance in the admissions process. i think that together with the decline of the power of rankings really gives universities the opportunity to rethink admissions, not to be wedded to things like average standardized test scores, and then to think about ways in which to bring in different people, different groups of people within the society. at columbia, there's a

program -- school of general studies that was introduced after world war ii. it has become remarkably successful. it's unique in the country. we admit many students every year for our undergraduate program. they are fully integrated into the student body. we admit many veterans, for example. more than all the ivy league combined. those veterans do extremely well. they are just great to have as part of the student body. so we may expand our admissions across the country -- i'm talking about higher education generally -- and begin to consider the benefits of taking people from different groups. in doing that, we may end up with multiple kinds of diversity, a greater diversity, but including racial and ethnic diversity. there's a question -- go ahead.

>> i also -- which is really -- i was not aware of the columbia veterans program, which is -- that's fascinating. they bring so much experience and leadership qualities and skill sets. all of the training they have. i wanted to read part of justice jackson's dissent in the unc case. she didn't participate in the harvard case because of recusal. she writes -- that combined with the justices writing there should be an end date to the policies, those that survive, reminds me of the voting rights decision in 2013, which is to assume at some point society will magically become

race neutral, which doesn't happen. >> this opens up -- your question, andrea, opens up the two different philosophies that are reflected in the roberts and other conservative justices' views about how to think about race in america. and that of justices jackson and sotomayor and formerly of justice ginsburg. to justice roberts and the others who joined him, brown versus board of education was a great moment in american history, declaring the 14th amendment required equal protection and not separate but equal schooling and other programs in the united states and set off the civil rights era. that was a great moment. but that was only about stopping racial discrimination. any kind of effort to overcome

the effects of racial discrimination are not allowed in his view. to justices jackson and sotomayor, this is -- and thurgood marshall, this is wrong thinking. we have had several hundred years of discrimination against african americans in particular, and we must find means to correct for that. they are ongoing. they haven't stopped. affirmative action in higher education began exactly for that reason in the 1970s, all across the country, every selective university tried to become more diverse as part of an effort in the country to grapple with the history and ongoing affects of discrimination. universities were told by justice powell, you cannot talk in those terms. ever since then, universities have been limited in how they

could think about affirmative action to just the diversity rationale, not the racial justice rationale. justice jackson and sotomayor are right to say, the only way to think about this sensibly is to put it in the context of a history of racial discrimination that continues to this day and requires the work of universities and other institutions to try to overcome it. affirmative action has been that. that's the -- a fundamental difference in the ways in which we talk about affirmative action reflected in these opinions. >> it's a privilege. thank you very much for being with us today. >> my pleasure. president biden is expected

to speak about the supreme court ruling today on affirmative action. his comments will be live right here on "andrea mitchell reports." stay with us. we are expecting him any moment right here on msnbc.

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of your crohn's with skyrizi. ♪ ♪ control is everything to me. ♪ learn how abbvie could help you save. right now at the white house, the president is expected to speak soon about the supreme court ruling on affirmative action. mike memoli joins us now. i can expect that the president will not be very happy about this supreme court decision. >> yeah, that's right. it's important in moments like this to remember that president joe biden was once senator joe biden who, of course, presided over or at least participated in dozens of supreme court confirmation processes in which affirmative action was a recurring discussion point. this is somebody who is very familiar with the history of this issue. his focus today will be the

narrow, what it means in terms of the specific universities and universe of people affected by this decision, the broader impact potentially of what the supreme court's decision on race metrics for increasing diversity would apply beyond s ñ■#. this is a person who considered african american support the backbone of his political support. there will be a lot of pressure on this admission administration to come out strongly in condemning this decision. it's worth noting kristin welker reporting that the president watched the news reports of this decision as it came in and then met with his senior staff, including those working on this issue. officials thought that in their participation in arguing against this decision they had made a strong case. it's worth noting the president of late has been praising of the

supreme court justice he nominated and saw confirmed to the court, ketanji brown jackson, and her blistering dissent, he will have in mind as he delivers remarks shortly. we are waiting for that -- word from the white house about how soon that will be. >> we will talk about politics in a bit. as you know, the polling is very much divided. the nation is divided on this issue, as on so many issues. affirmative action, depending on how you ask the question, not popular. what we know is that affirmative action has helped people move through these universities, created more diverse classes, of course. congressman khanna said it advantaged white students as well. prepared students for learning more about dealing with people of color, people with different

backgrounds and universities, to my knowledge, also try to find geographic diversity, economic diversity, finding, for instance, white working class people to create classes that are not just from one particular group and from prep schools. mike memoli, that's all part of the equation when they create these classes. i don't know if you heard it, but legal bollinger was saying that one thing that they may focus more on is standardized tests, which are now optional in many of the elite schools, because they tend to favor majority white students and students from very wealthy high schools that can get the advantage of s.a.t. prep courses and tutoring as well as changing other aspects of their admission processes. but it's not going to be easy. >> that's right. if you look at our nbc poll, it shows a majority of americans

continue to support affirmative action policies. the wording of the questions is so important. the context in which the president approaches this is which he has made diversity in his administration, equity filling his own administration and policies that his administration has been pursuing. this is a president who agreed with diversity being a strength here. it's worth noting, this is a president whose own 2020 campaign saw the fundamental reckoning with race that this country went through in the wake of george floyd. he had pledged to nominate a black woman to the supreme court. he had announced by that time a pledge to nominate a woman to be his running mate. ultimately, chose a black women, kamala harris, to be his running mate. i suspect we will hear the president talk about the value of diversity and the importance of making sure that as he says we haven't always lived up to

the fundamental promise of america, the enshrining documents, we the people, but that we need to continue to strive for it. we have never given up on that pledge. that's part of what the president, i think, will be addressing. >> mike memoli, thank you so much. we wait for the president. you can see some of his adds are -- his aides are popping in and out. barack and michelle obama are reacting to the supreme court decision today, issuingfo-

>> joining us now is kimberly atkins stohr, michael steele, jonathan ncapehart and tim miller. welcome all. kimberly, in her dissent, justice jackson saying the court has come to rest on the bottom line conclusion that racial diversity in higher education is only worth potentially preserving insofar as it might be needed to prepare black americans for success in the bunker, not the boardroom. they exclude the military academies from being affected by this. we are expecting the president any moment. will interrupt you politely when he walks in. >> understood. it's important to read justice jackson's dissent for a couple of reasons. it really hones in on the point that president bollinger was

making, the justification -- the constitutional justification for affirmative action was diversity in classrooms. it was not really about the students of color at all. it was this idea that by having diversity in classrooms, everyone, including white students, would benefit. that was the only constitutional justification that existed until today when it was struck down. what is an important thing is that it was meant to bring formerly enslaved americans into fully -- to fully participate in american society. in education, in the ability to vote, in the ability not to be enslaved again by other means. that's precisely the justification behind something like affirmative action. the 14th amendment was meant to support affirmative action. in the opinion, that's not

mentioned. that's an important point. >> the president is walking in. let's hear his reaction to this historic decision. >> for 45 years the united states supreme court has recognized a college's freedom to decide how to build diverse student bodies and to meet the responsibility of opening doors of opportunity for every single american. in case after case, including recently, a few years ago in 2016, the court has affirmed and reaffirmed this view, that colleges could use race, not as a determinative factor for admission, but one of the factors among many in deciding what to admit from a qualified -- qualified pool of applicants. today, the court once again walked away from decades of precedent and as the dissent made clear, the dissent states in today's decision, quote, rolls back decades of precedent

and momentous progress, end of quote. i agree with that statement from the dissent. the court has effectively ended affirmative action in college admissions. i strongly, strongly disagree with the court's decision. because affirmative action is so misunderstood, i want to be clear. make sure everybody is clear about what the law has been and what it has not been until today. many people wrongly believe that affirmative action allows unqualified students -- unqualified students to be admitted ahead of qualified students. students. this is not how college admissions work. rather colleges set out standards for admission, and every student has to meet those standards. then and only then, after first meeting the qualifications required by the school do colleges look at other factors in addition to their grades, such as race. the way it works in practice is this, colleges first establish a

qualified pool of candidates, based on a certain grade, test scores and other criteria. then and only then, then and only then it is from this pool of applicants, all of whom have already met the school's standards that the class is chosen, after weighing a wide range of factors among them being race. i've always believed one of the greatest strengths of america, and you're tired of hearing me say it, is diversity. if you have any doubt about it, look at the united states military. the finest fighting force in the history of the world has been a model of diversity and not only made our nation better, stronger, but safer. i believe the same is true for our schools. i have always believed the promise of america is big enough for everyone to succeed, and every generation of americans we have benefitted by opening the doors of opportunity a little

bit wider to include those left behind. i believe our colleges are stronger when they're racially diverse. our nation is stronger because we are tapping into the full range of talent in this nation. i also believe that while talent, creativity and hard work are everywhere across the country, not equal opportunity, it it is not everywhere across the country. we cannot let this decision be the last word. while the court can render a decision, it cannot change what america stands for. america is an idea, an idea unique in the world, an idea of hope and opportunity, of possibilities, of giving everyone a fair shot, of leaving no one behind. we've never fully looked up to it but never walked away from it either. we will not walk away from it now. we should never allow the country to walk away from the dream upon which it was founded. that opportunity is for

everyone, not just a few. we need a new path forward, a path consistent with the law that protects diversity and expands opportunity. so today, i want to offer some guidance to our nation's colleges as they review their admissions systems after today's decision. guidance that is consistent with the day's decision. they should not abandon, let me say this again, they should not abandon their commitment to ensure student bodies of diverse backgrounds and experience that reflect all of america. what i propose for consideration is a new standard where colleges take into effect the adversity a student has overcome when selecting among qualified applicants. let's be clear, students first have to be qualified applicants. they need the gpa and test scores to meet the school's standards. once that test is met, then adversity should be considered, including a student's lack of financial means, because we know

too few students of low income families, whether in big cities or rural communities are getting an opportunity to go to college. when a poor kid, maybe the first in the family to go to college gets the same grades and test scores as a wealthy kid, whose whole family has gone to the most elite colleges in the country, the kid who faced more challenges has demonstrated more grit, determination, and that should be a factor that colleges should take into effect in admissions, and many still do. it also means examining where the student grew up and went to high school. it means understanding particular hardships that each individual student has faced in life, including racial discrimination that individuals have faced in their own lives. the court says, quote, nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering applications discussion of how race has affected his or her

life, but be it through discrimination or inspiration or otherwise, end of quote, because the truth is we all know it. discrimination still exists in america. discrimination still exists in america. discrimination still exists in america. today's decision does not change that. it's a simple fact. if a student has overcome, had to overcome adversity on their path to education, the college should recognize and value that. our nation's colleges and universities should be engines of expanding opportunities through upward mobility. but today, too often that's not the case. one statistic, students from the top 10% of family incomes in america are 77 times more likely to get into an elite college than from the bottom 10%.

today, for too many schools, the only people who benefit from the system are the wealthy and the well connected. the odds have been stacked against working people for much too long. we need a higher education system that works for everyone. from appalachia, to atlanta, to far and beyond. we can and must do better, and we will. today, i'm directing the department of education to analyze what practices helped build a more inclusive and diverse student bodies and what practices hold that back. practices like legacy admissions, and other systems to expand privilege instead of opportunity. colleges and universities should continue their commitment to support, retain, and graduate the first students and classes. you know, and companies, company who are already realizing the value of diverse this decision. we can't go backwards.

you know, i know today's court decision is a severe disappointment to so many people, including me, but we cannot let the decision be a permanent setback for the country. we need to keep an open door of opportunities. we need to remember that diversity is our strength. we have to find a way forward. we need to remember that the promise of america is big enough for everyone to succeed. you know, that's the work of my administration. and i'm always going to fight for that. and i want to thank you all, and i know you've been told i have a helicopter out there waiting to go up to do an interview in new york. i'll be talking more about this. but thank you very much, and we're going to have plenty of time to talk about this. but we're not going to let this break us. thank you. >> mr. biden, the congressional black caucus of the supreme court has questioned its own legitimacy. is this a rogue court? >> this is not a normal court. >> should there be term limits for the justices, sir?

>> the president walking out of the roosevelt room saying that he's going to have a lot more to say about this. when he does that live interview later today, i want to quickly bring in michael steele, we just have a couple of minutes to conclude this here, but the president saying we cannot let the supreme court decision be the last word. knows that many people are strongly disappointed. michael, what do you think the fallout is going to be, and can they work around it? >> i think they'll be limited in their ability to work around it at the federal level. i think the fallout is going to be immense among colleges and universities. it's going to put a lot of pressure on them to reevaluate the way they evaluate incoming classes and what are those metrics, and the other thing i'm looking at is the ripple effect that this is now going to have on the business community. the president touched on this, and i would love to hear him say more to it, this decision sets

up the effort which is not covered that much to have the same outcome when it comes to the hiring of individuals and businesses across the country. so there's more to this than just education. >> and, in fact, as education becomes more diverse, jonathan capehart, that prepares people going into the business world and politics in our country. >> that's true. and in thinking about this decision, andrea, i cannot help but think of myself, especially after your interview with president bollinger of columbia university, especially when he was talking about s.a.t. scores. without a doubt, you and i would not be having this conversation right now were it not for affirmative action, were it not for the proactive efforts of carlton college in northfield, minnesota, to not just look at my test scores, but look at my

grades, my activity, my passion, and see into me the potential to be an asset to the student body, an asset to the college, and then ultimately an asset to the country. i hope that i am. i think that i am, but what i fear now is that because of this supreme court decision, they have put a lid on the dreams and potentials of millions of americans who could stand to benefit from the education that would come from it, and then stand to benefit from the reward that is come from hard work, and as a result of that, the nation is poorer for it. >> we've got to leave. thanks to all of you, and of course nicolle wallace will have the president live at 4:00 eastern, and "chris jansing reports" starts right now with lindsey reiser. ♪♪