Senator warns defiant college presidents not to flout Supreme Court affirmative action ruling  

An Ohio senator has forewarned 10 university presidents who “expressed open hostility” to the Supreme Court’s striking down of affirmative action to not try circumventing the ruling.  

The Supreme Court last week outlawed race as unconstitutional in the college admission process. The decision came after Harvard was sued over admission policies that discriminated against Asian students.  

Following the decision, several presidents of top universities including Harvard emphasized their commitment to promoting “diversity” despite the ruling, as reported by Fox News.  

Senator J.D. Vance wrote letters to the university presidents Thursday, warning them of their “defiant and potentially unlawful” actions.  

“I write to express concern about your institutions’ openly defiant and potentially unlawful reaction to the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, which reaffirmed the bedrock constitutional principle of equality under the law and therefore forbade invidious race-based preferences in college admissions,” Vance wrote.  

“As you know, the Court has instructed you to honor the spirit, and not just the letter, of the ruling. Going forward, the Court explained, ‘universities may not simply establish through application essays or other means the regime we hold unlawful today.’” 

In the letter, Vance includes statements from each of the 10 university presidents, claiming they each expressed “open hostility to the decision and seemed to announce an intention to circumvent it.” 

“Dartmouth President Beilock wrote, ‘I want to be absolutely clear: This decision in no way changes Dartmouth’s fundamental commitment to building a diverse and welcoming community of faculty, students and staff,’” Vance writes.  

In the letter, Vance expresses concern that academic institutions, especially the elite, aren’t respecting the court’s judgment and will defy the decision, as they’ve already expressed. He warned them to preserve all internal communications associated with the ruling. 

“The United States Senate is prepared to use its full investigative powers to uncover circumvention, covert or otherwise, of the Supreme Court’s ruling,” he warned the college presidents.  

To further enforce the Supreme Court’s decision, he asked the 10 university presidents to answer a series of questions covering how they will avoid violating the ruling and how they will be preserving their communications on the matter. 

The 10 institutions in question are Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, Cornell, Brown, the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia, Oberlin College and Kenyon College.