So Much for Class-Based Affirmative Action

When the Supreme Court struck down race-based affirmative action, it included some words of comfort for Americans worried about declining diversity at the nation’s most selective universities. Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority in the 2023 case Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, described the goal of creating a diverse student body as “commendable” and “worthy.” He wrote that universities could still consider applicants’ stories of how race had affected their lives. Even Justice Clarence Thomas—one of the Court’s most ardent opponents of racial preferences—suggested in his concurrence that universities still have numerous paths to maintaining racial diversity, citing the experience of states that had already banned affirmative action. “Race-neutral policies may thus