Colleges and universities may no longer factor race into admissions after the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to end\u00a0affirmative action<\/a>\u00a0in a consolidated decision handed down Thursday. The end of race-conscious college admissions will have a particularly outsized impact on women of color.<\/p> The decision in two cases \u2014 Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. University of North Carolina and Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College \u2014\u00a0<\/strong>reverses 45 years of legal precedent. In 1978\u2019s\u00a0Regents of the University of California v. Bakke<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0the court determined that affirmative action was lawful, a ruling that it upheld multiple times, including in the 2003 case\u00a0Grutter v. Bollinger<\/a>\u00a0and in the\u00a02013<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a02016 cases Fisher v. University of Texas<\/a>. In these decisions, White women claimed they were denied higher education admission because of their race.<\/p> The Supreme Court\u2019s decision to end affirmative action comes as\u00a0college enrollment has dropped steadily since 2019<\/a>. The student debt crisis, which disproportionately affects women of color, is one issue that\u2019s been linked to this downward enrollment trend. In August,\u00a0President Joe Biden forgave up to $20,000 in loan debt<\/a>\u00a0for qualifying students, but lawsuits following the decision blocked the federal government from providing this relief while it is being decided by the courts. The Supreme Court is expected to rule soon in\u00a0two related cases about Biden\u2019s debt forgiveness plan<\/a>: Biden v. Nebraska and Department of Education v. Brown.<\/p> The effort to block affirmative action coincides with a movement to\u00a0end diversity, equity and inclusion endeavors in higher education<\/a>.\u00a0Kimberl\u00e9 Crenshaw<\/a>, a professor at the UCLA School of Law and Columbia Law School, told The 19th in May that the trend suggests that some individuals have a distorted view of equity.<\/p> \u201cPeople have no idea how far a decision that claims that equity and inclusion is discriminatory will go to underscore demands that we stop talking about racism, we stop talking about sexism, we stop talking about homophobia and transphobia,\u201d said Crenshaw, whose work this year was cut from the College Board\u2019s new Advanced Placement African American Studies course.<\/p> \u201cThe idea that integration and inclusion is discriminatory against White people is the oldest idea in the book. Even at the end of Reconstruction, basically giving the freedmen rights was vetoed by the president at the time who said, \u2018This is discrimination against White people,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cAs late as the civil rights movement, they said forcing [White] people to serve Black people discriminates against them.\u201d<\/p> Read the full article about the end of affirmative action by Nadra Nittle at The 19th.