Supreme Court to Hear New Case on Race and School Admissions

The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it would revisit the issue of race and school admissions, three years after it sharply restricted affirmative action in higher education.

The case involves four selective public middle schools in Montgomery County, Md., just outside the nation’s capital. A group of mostly Asian American parents sued the school system after it changed its admissions criteria, saying that the new rules unconstitutionally discriminated against Asian American students.

In 2023, the Supreme Court struck down race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina. The justices did not address other school policies intended to diversify student bodies that do not explicitly address race.

Since then the court has declined to hear several other challenges to admissions criteria at elite public schools, including one from Virginia and another from the military academy at West Point.

It takes the votes of four justices to grant review, however, and several justices had previously signaled their interest in continuing to explore the implications of the court’s decision affecting higher education. In the Virginia case, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. dissented, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, saying the court should have taken the case.

The justices also agreed on Monday to hear a challenge to federal bans on home distillation of whiskey and other spirits. An Ohio engineer had brought a lawsuit against a nearly 160-year-old federal ban on home distilling, in a case that will test 1860s-era prohibitions. The two cases will be added to the justices’ calendar for oral argument next year and decided before the Supreme Court’s term ends in late June or early July.