President Joe Biden criticized the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down two universities’ affirmative action programs, saying that it has “done more to unravel basic rights” of citizens.
In an interview on MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House” with host Nicolle Wallace, Biden expressed his opinion on the decision from the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court voted 6-3 in the UNC case, and 6-2 in the Harvard case.
Wallace asked Biden to expand upon a statement he had made in response to a reporter asking him whether the Supreme Court was a “rogue court.” Biden answered the reporter by saying that it was “not a normal court.”
“What I meant with that is it’s done more to unravel basic rights and basic decisions than any court in recent history,” said Biden, adding that he feels the Supreme Court has “gone out of its way” to unravel basic human rights.
Watch: MSNBC’s @NicolleDWallace to Biden: "You said this court is not normal, what did you mean?"
— TV News Now (@TVNewsNow) June 29, 2023
Biden: "It's done more to unravel basic rights and basic decisions than any court in recent history…" pic.twitter.com/k9DJcBLceM
Biden cited the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the landmark Roe V. Wade decision in June 2022.
“Take a look at how it’s ruled on a number of issues that have been precedent for 50, 60 years sometimes,” Biden said, clarifying that was what he had “meant by not normal.”
Justice Ketanji Jackson criticized the Supreme Court’s majority decision, arguing the Supreme Court majority was opting to be colorblind in terms of race.
“Justice Sotomayor has persuasively established that nothing in the Constitution or Title VI prohibits institutions from taking race into account to ensure the racial diversity of admits in higher education,” wrote Jackson in her dissent.
Jackson argued that just because the Supreme Court ruled race “irrelevant in law does not make it so in life.”
“And having so detached itself from this country’s actual past and present experiences, the Court has now been lured into interfering with the crucial work that UNC and other institutions of higher learning are doing to solve America’s real-world problems,” wrote Jackson.
Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion that both admission programs from UNC and Harvard “lack sufficiently focused and measurable objectives warranting the use of race” and as a result, both “unavoidably employ race in a negative manner, involve racial stereotyping, and lack meaningful end points.”
“We have never permitted admissions programs to work in that way, and we will not do so today,” Roberts wrote.
