Raquel Muñiz (Boston College) & Nathan Hutcherson (Boston College) have posted Use of Extra-Legal Sources in the SFFA Decision: The Evidence that Informed the Court's Curtailing of Race-Conscious Admissions Precedent on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
Research across decades has found that the use of race in college admissions is one of the most effective ways to advance racial equity in higher education. In June 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court issued one of the most anticipated rulings in higher education in recent history: Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard; Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina (“SFFA”). The ruling held that the higher education institutions violated the Equal Protection Clause and Title VI in their use of race in college admissions. The ruling overturned and curtailed decades of precedent that allowed college admissions to use race in their decision-making. The ruling also countered extant research. Scholars have begun to decipher the ruling, its limitations, and implications. We build on this emerging body of research by analyzing the extra-legal sources, including research, that the Court used to make its historic ruling. We find that the Court made 137 citations to extra-legal sources in its 229-page opinion, with most of the citations to (history) books and law reviews and with only three citations to educational peer-reviewed research. We discuss the findings and future directions for research.
