Justice Thomas Unloads on Lawyer Defending Affirmative Action: ‘Diversity Seems to Mean Everything for Everyone’

Justice Clarence Thomas pressed North Carolina’s solicitor general to explain how the University of North Carolina defines diversity during oral arguments on Monday in a Supreme Court case centered around the use of race as a factor in college admissions.

“I’ve heard the word diversity quite a few times and I don’t have a clue what it means,” said Thomas. “It seems to mean everything for everyone.”

Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) has challenged the race-based admissions policies of both Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), accusing both schools of discriminating against Asian-American applicants. The cases were initially merged, but are now being heard separately after Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson recused herself from the Harvard case because she had previously served on the university’s board of overseers. 

The cases open the door for the Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative majority to reconsider its 2003 ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger, which allowed race to be used as a factor in college admissions to achieve student body diversity. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote for the Grutter majority that race should be used as a “plus factor,” and argued that such usage does not violate the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.