Supreme Court Will Hear Challenge to Affirmative Action at Harvard and U.N.C.
The New York Times
The court’s new conservative supermajority may be skeptical of admissions programs that take account of race to foster educational diversity.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to decide whether race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina are lawful, putting the fate of affirmative action in higher education at risk.
The court has repeatedly upheld similar programs, most recently in 2016. But the court’s membership has tilted right in recent years, and its new conservative supermajority is almost certain to view the challenged programs with skepticism, imperiling more than 40 years of precedent that said race could be used as one factor among many in evaluating applicants.
“Affirmative action has repeatedly been administered last rites during the last five decades,” said Justin Driver, a law professor at Yale. “But these two cases unmistakably pose the gravest threats yet to affirmative action’s continued vitality.”
With few signs of progress on a proposed redevelopment project, one group is hoping to move the famous arena.
The administration’s warning came just after it pulled hundreds of millions of dollars from Columbia University.
Instead of speaking out on the hot-button debates of the day, more schools are making it a policy to stay silent as political pressure mounts against higher education.
In his second term, President Trump is cultivating warm relationships with G.O.P. lawmakers — and using the implicit threat of ruining them if they stray — to keep them in line behind his agenda.
Federal agencies are removing topsoil from burned areas but will not test it for contaminants. So scientists and residents are testing fire-affected properties themselves.
President Trump is planning to gut the work force while trying to turn the I.R.S. into a more political agency.
Three mayoral candidates have been accused of sexual misconduct. They deny wrongdoing. Will it be a deciding issue for Democratic voters?
President Trump has made clear he wants to keep both men and their allies within his movement, but the tensions are growing.
The authorities said there were no initial reports of damage from the quake, which struck in the hills west of Malibu.
The state and the correctional officers’ union agreed that officers should return to work Monday and that some provisions of a solitary confinement law would be put on pause.
One of the three media witnesses to the execution of Brad Sigmon in South Carolina on Friday describes what he saw.
The utility that serves New York City and Westchester County has filed a request to raise its rates to help pay for the shift to cleaner energy, sparking dismay among residents.
Clinical trials have been delayed, contracts canceled and support staff fired. With deeper cuts coming, some are warning of potential harms to veterans.