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Jewish quotas were at the heart of Supreme Court affirmative action ruling
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Harvard’s 20th-century antisemitic Jewish quotas were a key part of the Supreme Court’s decision to gut affirmative action on Thursday, as the winning litigant and two conservative justices cited them in the landmark case.
The 6-3 decision Thursday, authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, bars universities from using race as an explicit factor in considering admissions, but allows race to be cited by applicants in essays describing their life experiences.
Students for Fair Admissions, the conservative advocacy group that brought the cases against Harvard and the University of North Carolina, claimed that the holistic admissions approach Harvard uses — which includes seeking a “extraordinary and diverse class of undergraduate students by conducting a wide-ranging review of every aspect of each applicant’s background and experience” — had its roots in the 1920s quota system “to discriminate against Jewish applicants.”
In 1922, Harvard’s president, A. Lawrence Lowell, noticed a precipitous rise in the number of Jews accepted to the university and proposed accepting a quota of only 15% Jewish students. Other American and Canadian universities followed suit.
At least two justices were sympathetic to the SFFA argument. Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas each raised the Jewish quotas in separate concurrences.
“According to then-[Harvard] President Abbott Lawrence Lowell, excluding Jews from Harvard would help maintain admissions opportunities for Gentiles and perpetuate the purity of the Brahmin race,” Thomas wrote.
Gorsuch quoted the advocacy group’s findings in his concurrence. “Harvard made this move, SFFA asserts, because President A. Lawrence Lowell and other university leaders had become ‘alarmed by the growing number of Jewish students who were testing in,’ and they sought some way to cap the number of Jewish students without ‘stat[ing] frankly’ that they were ‘directly excluding all [Jews] beyond a certain percentage.’”
Gorsuch also brought up Jews in a different context, to ridicule what he said was the incoherence of affirmative action. “There are also decisions granting Hispanic status to a Sephardic Jew whose ancestors fled Spain centuries ago,” he said, referring to a 1995 case in which the Small Business Administration certified a business as minority-owned because of the applicant’s Sephardic heritage.
Two Jewish groups also raised Harvard’s post antisemitism in amicus briefs, but to opposite ends. The Anti-Defamation League said the quota system was an inappropriate analogy because Harvard was seeking the opposite effect — to ease the entry of minorities. The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law said the analogy was apt, claiming that the effect of the current policy was to exclude Asian students.
“We are deeply disappointed with the Supreme Court’s decision finding that the admissions programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina are unconstitutional,” Steve Freeman, ADL’s senior counsel, said in a statement. “This decision reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the history and present realities of racial discrimination in this country and the reasons why affirmative action is still needed.”
The Brandeis Center’s director, Kenneth Marcus — who as the chief civil rights officer in the Trump administration’s Department of Education worked on multiple cases involving Israel and alleged antisemitism — called the decision “commendable for its moral clarity.” In a release, Marcus quoted the brief he helped author.
“Just as Harvard used methods in the 1920s and 1930s to identify applicants of sufficient ‘character and fitness’ as a pretext to discriminate against Jews, Harvard’s current use of the ‘personal rating’ to pursue student-body diversity is a pretext to discriminate against Asian Americans,” the brief said.
Another four Jewish groups also criticized the decision: the American Jewish Committee, the Reform movement’s Religious Action Center, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, and the Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action.
“As a multiracial Jewish community, we know diversity is our strength and recognize that ignoring race will only perpetuate racial injustice,” said Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, the RAC director, in a statement.
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UN Security Council Meets on Iran as Russia, China Push for a Ceasefire
Members of the Security Council cast a vote during a United Nations Security Council meeting on the 3rd anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at UN headquarters in New York, US, Feb. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/David Dee Delgado
The U.N. Security Council met on Sunday to discuss US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites as Russia, China and Pakistan proposed the 15-member body adopt a resolution calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in the Middle East.
It was not immediately clear when it could be put to a vote. The three countries circulated the draft text, said diplomats, and asked members to share their comments by Monday evening. A resolution needs at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the United States, France, Britain, Russia or China to pass.
The US is likely to oppose the draft resolution, seen by Reuters, which also condemns attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites and facilities. The text does not name the United States or Israel.
“The bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities by the United States marks a perilous turn in a region that is already reeling,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council on Sunday. “We now risk descending into a rathole of retaliation after retaliation.”
“We must act – immediately and decisively – to halt the fighting and return to serious, sustained negotiations on the Iran nuclear program,” Guterres said.
The world awaited Iran’s response on Sunday after President Donald Trump said the US had “obliterated” Tehran’s key nuclear sites, joining Israel in the biggest Western military action against the Islamic Republic since its 1979 revolution.
U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi told the Security Council that while craters were visible at Iran’s enrichment site buried into a mountain at Fordow, “no one – including the IAEA – is in a position to assess the underground damage.”
Grossi said entrances to tunnels used for the storage of enriched material appear to have been hit at Iran’s sprawling Isfahan nuclear complex, while the fuel enrichment plant at Natanz has been struck again.
“Iran has informed the IAEA there has been no increase in off-site radiation levels at all three sites,” said Grossi, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Iran requested the U.N. Security Council meeting, calling on the 15-member body “to address this blatant and unlawful act of aggression, to condemn it in the strongest possible terms.”
Israel‘s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon said in a statement on Sunday that the U.S. and Israel “do not deserve any condemnation, but rather an expression of appreciation and gratitude for making the world a safer place.”
Danon told reporters before the council meeting that it was still early when it came to assessing the impact of the U.S. strikes. When asked if Israel was pursuing regime change in Iran, Danon said: “That’s for the Iranian people to decide, not for us.”
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Israel Rejects Critical EU Report Ahead of Ministers’ Meeting
FILE PHOTO: Smoke rises from Gaza after an explosion, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, June 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo
Israel has rejected a European Union report saying it may be breaching human rights obligations in Gaza and the West Bank as a “moral and methodological failure,” according to a document seen by Reuters on Sunday.
The note, sent to EU officials ahead of a foreign ministers’ meeting on Monday, said the report by the bloc’s diplomatic service failed to consider Israel’s challenges and was based on inaccurate information.
“The Foreign Ministry of the State of Israel rejects the document … and finds it to be a complete moral and methodological failure,” the note said, adding that it should be dismissed entirely.
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Pope Leo Urges International Diplomacy to Prevent ‘Irreparable Abyss’
FILE PHOTO: Pope Leo XIV holds a Jubilee audience on the occasion of the Jubilee of Sport, at St. Peter’s Basilica, at the Vatican June 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yara Nardi/File Photo
Pope Leo on Sunday said the international community must strive to avoid war that risks opening an “irreparable abyss,” and that diplomacy should take the place of conflict.
US forces struck Iran’s three main nuclear sites overnight, joining an Israeli assault in a major new escalation of conflict in the Middle East as Tehran vowed to defend itself.
“Every member of the international community has a moral responsibility: to stop the tragedy of war before it becomes an irreparable abyss,” Pope Leo said during his weekly prayer with pilgrims.
“No armed victory can compensate for the pain of mothers, the fear of children, the stolen future. Let diplomacy silence the weapons, let nations chart their future with peace efforts, not with violence and bloody conflicts,” he added.
“In this dramatic scenario, which includes Israel and Palestine, the daily suffering of the population, especially in Gaza and other territories, risks being forgotten, where the need for adequate humanitarian support is becoming increasingly urgent,” Pope Leo said.
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