What Nonprofit and Foundation Leaders Are Saying About the Supreme Court’s Affirmative-Action Ruling

After the Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that Harvard and the University of North Carolina had taken a discriminatory and illegal approach by using race as a factor in admissions, many nonprofit and foundation leaders issued statements. Here is a sampling:

The ruling threatens to return this nation to a time when education and opportunity were reserved for a privileged class. It endangers 60 years of multiracial movements to challenge our nation to live up to the ideals enshrined in our founding documents.

Universities and colleges and those organizations supporting them deserve the resources and support to continue their critical mission. They need our resolve, too. Philanthropies are vital partners in our nation’s progress. We will remain steadfast in our collective mission to create a more equitable nation within the bounds of the law.

— Joint statement by more than 52 foundations and organizations that represent grant makers. Among the grant makers signing the statement: the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, the Raikes Foundation and Omidyar Network. (MacArthur and Ford are financial supporters of the Chronicle.)

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In issuing today’s decision, the Supreme Court is ignoring the clear, persistent, and deeply ingrained inequities that define our educational system, which will only be exacerbated by barring higher education institutions’ admissions offices from considering race and the history of racism in this country.

— Jocelynne Rainey, president of the Brooklyn Community Foundation