Harvard And University Of North Carolina Garner Support From Tech Giants In Affirmative Action Case

In a freshly-filed brief, nearly 70 companies, including Google, Apple and Meta Platforms, proclaimed that corporate-level diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts “depend on university admissions programs that lead to graduates educated in racially and ethnically diverse environments,” according to Bloomberg.

“Only in this way can America produce a pipeline of highly qualified future workers and business leaders prepared to meet the needs of the modern economy and workforce,” the statement read.

“Empirical studies confirm that diverse groups make better decisions thanks to increased creativity, sharing of ideas and accuracy,” the companies added within the brief. “These benefits are not simply intangible; they translate into businesses’ bottom lines.”

This support comes on the heels of Harvard calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to keep affirmative action in the college admissions process, as Blavity previously reported.

25 Harvard student & alumni orgs represented by LDF have filed a brief in the US Supreme Court in SFFA v Harvard. It asks the Court to uphold 40+ years of precedent holding that it’s legally permissible to consider race as one of many factors in admissions.https://t.co/q6tXn7Iyzi

— Legal Defense Fund (@NAACP_LDF) July 25, 2022

The situation is related to a lawsuit that an anti-affirmative action group called Students for Fair Admission (SFFA) filed against Harvard and UNC.

The group argues that Harvard and UNC’s admission policies are discriminatory against Asian American and white students, as the SFFA alleges that the institutions favor Black, Latino and Indigenous students.

As a result, the SFFA argues that affirmative action directly violates the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment since it factors in a student’s race.

However, Harvard contested these claims last week.

“Nothing in the text or history of the Fourteenth Amendment suggests that universities must uniquely exclude race from the multitude of factors considered in assembling a class of students best able to learn from each other,” the Ivy League institution’s brief read, according to The Harvard Crimson.

“Our Constitution promises ‘equal protection of the laws.’ It does not require us to disregard the common sense reality that race is one among many things that shape life experiences in meaningful ways,” the brief continued.

In a separate briefing, North Carolina Attorney General Joshua Stein defended UNC’s use of affirmative action by noting that if the precedent on the matter is overturned, the decision “would force hundreds of institutions across the country to overhaul admissions policies,” according to Bloomberg Law.

The Supreme Court is expected to begin hearing the cases, dubbed Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina, this fall.