The Court shouldn’t be biased. But we all know it is.
And now a Supreme Court Justice got political with one endorsement of Michelle Obama.
Supreme Court Justice Backs Michelle Obama’s Race-Based Admissions Complaint as Harvard Faces DOJ Scrutiny
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson agreed with former first lady Michelle Obama’s criticism of isolating students of color at elite colleges during Wednesday’s episode of Obama’s podcast, siding with her former Harvard classmate even as the university faces mounting federal scrutiny over its compliance with the Supreme Court’s own affirmative-action ruling.
Jackson Endorses Obama’s Complaint About Race-Conscious Placement
Jackson, an undergraduate and law degree recipient from Harvard, said the university’s sizable Black community helped her feel at home during her time there. Obama, who also received her law degree from Harvard but attended Princeton as an undergraduate, argued schools failed students of color when they spread them thinly across campus.
“You don’t do kids of color service by plucking them out and making them one of a few, and then scattering them about the campus,” Obama said.
“I think that’s absolutely right,” Jackson responded.
Jackson described feeling popular but lonely in high school before contrasting that isolation with the belonging she said she found at Harvard in the late 1980s.
“At the time that I went to Harvard, which, we’re contemporaries in terms of the timing of it, there was a sizable Black community on campus,” Jackson said. “And it was like, I found my people, in a sense. The people who had similar life experiences and backgrounds that I had, where you could feel totally comfortable being yourself. And my roommates and I… I roomed with five other Black women, and there were six of us on campus, and then we were within this larger community, and it was just amazing.”
Jackson Previously Dissented From Ruling Striking Down Race-Conscious Admissions
Jackson recused herself from the Supreme Court’s landmark case over Harvard’s race-conscious admissions program because she had served on the university’s Board of Overseers, but she participated in the companion University of North Carolina case when the court struck down both schools’ programs in 2023. She joined Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent as it applied to UNC and wrote her own opinion warning the ruling would deepen racial disparities.
“No one benefits from ignorance,” Jackson wrote at the time. “Although formal race-linked legal barriers are gone, race still matters to the lived experiences of all Americans in innumerable ways, and today’s ruling makes things worse, not better.”
Harvard’s Black Enrollment Has Fallen Since the Ruling as DOJ Presses for Records
Jackson’s remarks came as Harvard faces continued federal scrutiny over whether it has actually complied with the Supreme Court’s decision banning race as a factor in admissions. Among students who reported their race, Black students accounted for 11.5% of Harvard’s Class of 2029, down from 14% in the Class of 2028 and 18% in the Class of 2027, while Asian American enrollment climbed to 41% in the latest class and Hispanic enrollment fell to 11%.
The Justice Department sued Harvard in February for applicant-level records to examine whether its undergraduate, law and medical schools comply with the ruling, though the department said the lawsuit did not accuse Harvard of new discrimination.
“If Harvard has stopped discriminating, it should happily share the data necessary to prove it,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said in a Justice Department press release announcing the suit.
Harvard moved to dismiss the case in June, arguing it changed its admissions procedures immediately after the ruling, blocked application reviewers from seeing race check-box information, and produced thousands of pages showing its compliance.
“Harvard is committed to following the law, including civil rights laws in connection with admissions and financial aid, and Harvard has complied with and continues to comply with the law under the Students for Fair Admissions decision,” Harvard said in a February statement to Fox News Digital.
