Harvard Admissions Case Tests O’Connor’s 2003 Call on Race Bias

Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s majority opinion preserving affirmative action in a 2003 case included some declarative wording that justices tend to avoid—and that the justice came to regret using.

“The Court expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today,” O’Connor wrote in Grutter v. Bollinger, a case involving the University of Michigan.

Eighteen years later, what the retired justice meant to convey in that statement could help form arguments at the Supreme Court if its conservative majority takes up a challenge to Harvard ...