Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., chairman of the Anti-Woke Caucus, said Congress should build on the Supreme Court's ruling Thursday to ban the use of race in college admissions by ending affirmative action in the federal government.
In a statement to Breitbart News, Banks called the ruling "great news for racial equality" and hailed it as "a big step toward a more perfect union."
"Affirmative action was a failed experiment rooted in racial discrimination from day one, but the hard work doesn't stop here," Banks said. "This morning's ruling is just the beginning of eliminating race as a determining factor for success in our military, federal government, and boardrooms across the country and the Anti-Woke Caucus will be at the front of that fight to restore colorblind meritocracy."
The Supreme Court struck down race-conscious student admissions programs at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina in a sudden setback to affirmative action policies that are often used to increase the number of minority students on campuses.
The court's conservative majority ruled in favor of a group called Students for Fair Admissions, which had appealed lower court rulings that upheld programs used at the two schools to promote a racially diverse student population.
The decision was 6-3 against the University of North Carolina and 6-2 against Harvard University, with the court's liberal justices dissenting. Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson did not take part in the Harvard case.
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said: "Harvard and UNC admissions programs cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause," referring to the U.S. Constitution's promise of equal protection under the law.
A student "must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual not on the basis of race," Roberts wrote. "Many universities have for too long done just the opposite. And in doing so, they have concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individual's identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned but the color of their skin. Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice."
Affirmative action on campuses has long been backed by institutions of higher education, corporations and military leaders as a way to diversify the talent pool and ensure that there is a range of perspectives in the workplace and U.S. military.
In a dissent joined by Jackson and Justice Elena Kagan, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the decision "subverts" the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection and further ingrains racial disparity is education.
"Today, this Court stands in the way and rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress," she wrote.
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