How the Supreme Court disregarded the point of three Constitutional amendments in its recent college admissions ruling

Race matters in college admissions because the more races we have sharing their perspectives and experiences, the better leaders the United States produces to make decisions that benefit us all, not just a portion of us.

Corporations know this because they get innovation and leadership by ensuring diverse perspectives work for them.

The Supreme Court of the United States used the 14th amendment — specifically designed to help Black Americans to escape the dehumanization of slavery — to remove race as a consideration from college admissions.

Our guest,  Michael Ross, a Professor of History at the University of Maryland at College Park, specializes in the U.S. Constitutional and Legal History.

He argues that the court knows that the 14th Amendment is designed to protect Black people.

Instead, though, it uses the 14th Amendment to argue against race being a factor in college admissions. The decision could be used to undermine any proposed effort to argue for race being a factor in policy-making.

Ross is the author of two prize-winning books: Justice of Shattered Dreams: Samuel Freeman Miller and Supreme Court during the Civil War Era and The Great New Orleans Kidnapping Case: Race, Law, and Justice in the Reconstruction Era. 

He serves as associate editor of the Journal of Supreme Court History, has served as the historical advisor to the United States Mint, and has twice delivered Silverman lectures at the United States Supreme Court. He holds a J.D. from the Duke University School of Law and earned a Ph.D. in History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.