Harvard University filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday that defends the high court’s past rulings that upheld affirmative action asking the court to reject a lawsuit that seeks to ban race-conscious admissions.

In January 2023, the arguments will be heard against Harvard and the University of North Carolina’s (UNC) admissions guidelines.

Harvard requests the court to reject the lawsuit filed by the anti-affirmative action group Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA).

The SFFA argues that Harvard’s admission policy discriminates against Asian-Americans and wants the court to upend established precedent.

SFFA argues that Harvard’s admission policy violates the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment by considering a student’s race.

SFFA argues that Harvard and UNC institutions discriminate against white and Asian applicants by favoring Black, Hispanic and Native American students.

“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 SFFA brief argued.

“Those decisions were correct then and remain correct today,” the brief reads. “Our Constitution promises ‘equal protection of the laws.’ It does not require us to disregard the commonsense reality that race is one among many things that shape life experiences in meaningful ways.”

Harvard argues that the race-conscious practices comply with the high court’s previous school affirmative action rulings in Regents of the University of California v. BakkeGrutter v. Bollinger and Fisher v. University of Texas.

The University President Lawrence S. Bacow said the counterargument makes “a powerful case that enrolling a diverse student body is central to fulfilling our educational mission.”

“We remain steadfast in our belief that every college and university must retain the freedom and flexibility to create the diverse educational communities that will prepare their students for the opportunities and challenges they will confront in an increasingly diverse society,” Bacow said.

The University of North Carolina submitted a separate brief outlining similar arguments.