“Discrimination still exists in America,” he said, repeating his words for emphasis. “Today’s decision does not change that.”
Mr. Biden paused as a reporter asked if the court was “rogue.” “This is not a normal court,” he responded.
Conservative leaders and advocacy groups celebrated the outcome, with some saying it would make the admissions process more fair.
Matt Schlapp, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, one of the nation’s largest conservative groups, said that the decision, paired with the court’s abortion ruling last year, “serve as a triumphant return to restoring our tattered Constitution.”
In dissent, Justice Sotomayor wrote that the majority had abandoned principled adjudication.
“At bottom,” she wrote, “the six unelected members of today’s majority upend the status quo based on their policy preferences about what race in America should be like, but is not, and their preferences for a veneer of colorblindness in a society where race has always mattered and continues to matter in fact and in law.”
The chief justice wrote that admissions officers could sometimes still take account of race, including in the college essay. “Nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration or otherwise,” he wrote.
The point, Chief Justice Roberts said, was that applicants must be assessed individually. “In other words,” he wrote, “the student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual — not on the basis of race.”
