The Supreme Court's 2023 ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard struck down race-based admissions, and the reasoning matters. Chief Justice Roberts wrote that admissions programs that judge students based on race 'lack sufficiently focused and measurable objectives' and use race as a stereotype rather than recognizing individual achievement.

But beyond the legal ruling, the evidence suggests affirmative action actually harmed the people it claimed to help. Economist Thomas Sowell and legal scholar Richard Sander have documented what they call the 'mismatch effect.' When students are admitted to schools where their academic credentials are significantly below the median, they struggle, switch out of challenging majors at higher rates, and are more likely to drop out.

Sander's research on law schools found that after accounting for the mismatch effect, eliminating racial preferences would actually increase the number of Black lawyers, not decrease it, because more students would graduate from schools matched to their preparation level. UCLA's Black graduation rate increased after California's Proposition 209 banned affirmative action in 1996.

The Asian American experience under affirmative action was particularly unjust. Harvard's own internal data showed it consistently rated Asian applicants lower on 'personality' scores — effectively penalizing them for being the wrong minority. Asian Americans needed SAT scores 140-450 points higher than other groups for equivalent admissions chances.

Alternatives to race-based preferences exist and work. Socioeconomic-based preferences help disadvantaged students of all races. Percentage plans that admit top students from every high school increase diversity based on geography and school quality. Expanded outreach and preparation programs address root causes.

True equality means equal treatment, not equal outcomes engineered by judging people by the color of their skin.