UNC Chapel Hill, which led fight for race-based admissions, now works to fully abolish it

‘This is a moment of humility. A lot of people thought that we were fighting a good fight that needed to be fought, but as it turns out, we were actually doing something we should not have been doing.’

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, one of two main defendants that fought to keep race-based admissions policies legal in a historic case that ended up before the Supreme Court, is now moving full steam ahead to completely abolish the practice.

Nearly four weeks after the Supreme Court ruled the university’s race-based admissions practice was unconstitutional, the UNC Chapel Hill Board of Trustees voted to ban not only the use of race in admissions — but also in all hiring, including employees and contract work.

The resolution, which passed 10 to 1 in a vote in late July, even includes a caveat that officials cannot “establish through application essays or other means” any proxies premised on race-based preferences in hiring or admissions.