It’s been over 100 years since the first Black students stepped foot on a college campus to encourage diversity and equal opportunity in higher education. These students helped change the scope of education for generations to come — not only for Black people but other minorities too. To help continue this progression, over the last several decades, colleges and universities across the nation implemented a race-conscious rule, which aims to stop racial discrimination.

With the policy in place, a student’s race is just one component outside of additional factors like athletics, musical talent, academic merit, income and more when a potential student’s application is being considered for admission.

The Supreme Court may change colleges and universities’ ability to use race-conscious admission policies to ensure diversity and inclusion among its student body, therefore making the policy unconstitutional. The two cases at the forefront of this decision are Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard, and Students for Fair Admissions v. the University of North Carolina.

The Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) is led by Edward Blum, who’s against affirmative action. Its main mission is to remove race consciousness from the college admissions process. This isn’t the first time SFFA has brought this same case to the Supreme Court, as he’s had two failed attempts in the past.

Earlier this year, the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Massachusetts and ACLU of North Carolina filed an amicus brief to push the Supreme Court to continue allowing affirmative action to be a part of college admissions programs, according to ACLU.

If the court approves, barriers would once again be put in place that limit people of color’s access to a fair education. The diversity in the student body on college campuses would decrease heavily, pushing America back in time. Moving forward, the only way colleges and universities would be able to combat this is by actively seeking students from various backgrounds and looking at factors of applicants that don’t lean on the side of discrimination.