Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is once again weighing in on one of the nation’s most contentious cultural issues, agreeing with former First Lady Michelle Obama that elite universities fail students of color when they scatter too few of them across campus.
Appearing on Michelle Obama’s “IMO” podcast, Jackson reflected on her years at Harvard University and said she found a sense of belonging through the school’s Black community.
Obama argued that colleges make a mistake when they admit only a small number of minority students without ensuring they have a meaningful community once they arrive.
“You don’t do kids of color service by plucking them out and making them one of a few and then scattering them about the campus,” Obama said.
“I think that’s absolutely right,” Jackson replied.
Jackson contrasted her college experience with what she described as feeling isolated in high school. “At the time that I went to Harvard… there was a sizable Black community on campus,” she said. “It was like, I found my people, in a sense.”
She described living with five other Black women and said the broader community allowed her to feel “totally comfortable being yourself.”
“The people who had similar life experiences and backgrounds that I had,” Jackson said, “and then we were within this larger community, and it was just amazing.”
The discussion comes three years after the Supreme Court’s landmark Students for Fair Admissions decision, which struck down race-conscious admissions policies at both Harvard University and the University of North Carolina.
Jackson did not participate in the Harvard case because she previously served on Harvard’s Board of Overseers. She did, however, join Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent in the companion UNC case and wrote separately that race continues to shape Americans’ lived experiences.
“No one benefits from ignorance,” Jackson wrote at the time. “Although formal race-linked legal barriers are gone, race still matters to the lived experiences of all Americans in innumerable ways.”
The issue remains far from settled. The Justice Department continues to investigate whether Harvard has fully complied with the Court’s ruling. Federal officials have sought applicant-level admissions records, arguing the university should demonstrate that race is no longer influencing admissions decisions.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon previously said, “If Harvard has stopped discriminating, it should happily share the data necessary to prove it.”
Harvard has responded that it immediately revised its admissions process following the Court’s decision, blocked reviewers from seeing applicants’ race check-boxes, and has produced extensive documentation demonstrating compliance with federal law.
Reaction to Jackson’s remarks was swift.
Emphasizing racial identity as a source of belonging appears difficult to reconcile with the Supreme Court’s conclusion that admissions decisions should no longer turn on race. The discussion reignited familiar arguments over whether diversity initiatives strengthen higher education or undermine equal treatment under the law.
The Supreme Court’s majority concluded that equal protection under the law means applicants should be evaluated as individuals, not as representatives of racial groups.
Jackson disagreed then. Her comments suggest she still does.
But here’s the challenge for universities. If the goal is for students to find “their people,” does that mean people who look like them? Or people who share their values, interests, faith, hometown, military service, academic passions or life experiences?
America has spent decades trying to move toward a society where race is less central to opportunity. Many conservatives worry we’re drifting back toward a philosophy where race becomes the first lens through which institutions—and even individuals—view themselves.
That’s a debate that didn’t end with the Supreme Court’s ruling.
DBS WIRE SOURCES
Fox News – Ketanji Brown Jackson agrees with Michelle Obama’s criticism of “plucking” kids of color into elite schools
The Daily Beast – Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson discusses life on the Supreme Court with Michelle Obama
Fox News – Michelle Obama compares affirmative action to athlete admissions
U.S. Department of Justice – Harvard admissions litigation updates
