The US Supreme Court has effectively banned universities from considering race as part of their admissions process, a move that sent shockwaves through American higher education.
Diversity programmes are also declared unconstitutional as a result.
Voting 6-3 along ideological grounds, the nine justices struck down admissions programmes at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina (UNC), the country’s oldest private and public colleges, respectively.
The ruling followed lawsuits which claimed that affirmative action policies at the two universities discriminated against white and Asian-American students.
“The student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual — not on the basis of race,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the conservative majority. “Many universities have for too long done just the opposite.
