The Supreme Court will hear two cases that are likely to end affirmative action

The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it will hear Students for Fair Admissions v. President & Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina, two cases that present an existential threat to affirmative action in university admissions.

These cases are the culmination of a years-long strategy by conservative activists — and by one activist in particular — to win a court decision invalidating affirmative action. The president of Students for Fair Admissions, the lead plaintiff in the Harvard and UNC cases, is not a student at all. It is Edward Blum, a former stockbroker who was also the driving force behind several other lawsuits asking the courts to expand the power and influence of white people.

The two cases are also the first challenge to race-conscious university admissions programs to reach the Court since Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin (2016), which imposed strict limits on affirmative action programs but did not forbid them entirely.

The Court that will decide these cases looks very different from the one that considered affirmative action in 2016. Fisher was a 4-3 decision, because Justice Antonin Scalia died several months before Fisher was handed down and Justice Elena Kagan was recused. The four-justice majority, moreover, included retired Justice Anthony Kennedy and the now-late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.