Harvard & UNC affirmative action cases to be argued on Oct 31

[Donerail]

No point in imagining such scenarios. Jackson will be the only recusal, in Harvard, which has already been clear for months. Affirmative action in college admissions will certainly finally be overturned, very likely in 6-2 and 6-3 votes.

The remaining question, I think, is how far it will sweep—whether this ends up just being a decision about college admissions, or whether it will extend to race-based hiring and contracting as well.

[Donerail]

No point in imagining such scenarios. Jackson will be the only recusal, in Harvard, which has already been clear for months. Affirmative action in college admissions will certainly finally be overturned, very likely in 6-2 and 6-3 votes.

The remaining question, I think, is how far it will sweep—whether this ends up just being a decision about college admissions, or whether it will extend to race-based hiring and contracting as well.

The court order made it clear

"Should this Court overrule Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003), and hold
that institutions of higher education cannot use race as a factor in admissions?"

the scope is limited to higher education only. Other levels of education will likely be addressed in the Virginia high school case. Hiring would need other cases as well, which likely would arrive soon.

I'm aware of the mechanics. But there are a lot of ways to write an opinion overruling Grutter, some of which would discourage challenges to other systems of racial preferences. If the Court says, for example, "the use of racial preferences is statistically no longer be necessary to further the interest at stake in Grutter," that would dampen litigation applying the case to other situations, because it would allow judges a way to distinguish the ruling ("your district is less integrated than the avg university, so racial preferences are still okay here"). By contrast, if the Court says "affirmative action in university admissions is unconstitutional because the Equal Protection Clause prohibits all forms of racial preferences everywhere all the time, please file cases overturning those" it would have sweeping effects very quickly.

[Donerail]

Affirmative action will lose because Harvard is guilty. Conservatives will cheer at first because there will be fewer black and hispanic students at their beloved Harvard, but before long they will recoil in horror as the student body's at America's most elite private schools begin to resemble that of UCLA.

Nah, Harvard knows a loss is coming and has already dropped its SAT requirement in response. When admissions are solely based on "intangibles," with no statistics, they'll basically be able to keep on doing the same thing — it'll just be a lot harder to challenge legally. White mediocrities with money and connections will always have a place at Harvard

[Donerail]

O'Connor flipped on the basis of amicus briefs submitted by military leaders and corporations, both of which featured heavily in the opinion and at oral argument. If Roberts and Kavanaugh flip it'll be on that basis. But that, to me, seems exceedingly unlikely.