Trump to revoke Obama policy using race in school admissions

WASHINGTON (AP):

The Trump administration is rescinding Obama-era guidance that encouraged schools to take a student's race into account in order to promote diversity in admissions, a United States official said yesterday.

The shift would give schools and universities the federal government's blessing to take a race-neutral approach to students they consider for admission.

The action comes amid a high-profile court fight over admission at Harvard University, as well as Supreme Court turnover expected to produce a more critical eye toward schools' affirmative action policies.

The high court's most recent significant ruling on the subject bolstered colleges' use of race among many factors in the college admission process. But the opinion's author, Anthony Kennedy, announced his retirement last week, giving President Donald Trump a chance to replace him with a justice who will be more reliably skeptical of admissions programmes that take race and ethnicity into account.

A formal announcement was expected later yesterday from the Justice and Education departments, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorised to discuss the new guidance ahead of its release.

The new policy would depart from the stance taken by the Obama administration, which, in a 2011 policy document, said schools have a "compelling interest" in ensuring a diverse student body. The guidance said that while race should not be the primary factor in an admission decision, schools could lawfully consider it in the interest of achieving diversity.