Discriminating by race for college admissions is also explicitly illegal. (Edit: see https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/hq43e4.html )

The law only matters inasmuch as it can be enforced. If judges decline to enforce the law when they believe it’s in the interest of diversity to discriminate against a specific race like Asians, it could equally apply to employment where similar diversity initiatives are taking root.

That's not true the way you claim it to be.

I just read the full decision, and there's a pretty decent number of citations of existing case law discussing what does and doesn't count as discriminating by race, specifically within the context of college admissions. It's in the last 1/3 of the document after the findings of fact and discussions of statistical analyses.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mzqBPL57yCRWHZGE7A6U6re3cGX...

You might disagree with the reasoning of the decision, but there's already case law separating education from employment. Past that we get into slippery slope territory that this decision specifically avoids.

My point is that case law vs an explicit statement of law is not the same.

Judges in the future may rule that tech companies can pass strict scrutiny if they are discriminating against Asians in favor of other races, using similar arguments to those in education law.

This area of law is slippery because the text of Federal civil rights law doesn’t allow for discrimination, but case law (and arguably the original intent of the law’s authors) does.

There is currently a large movement in favor of “diversity” programs in hiring and I can see judges upholding them.

Absolutely reading the decision will be informative to everyone though.

While IANAL...

There is a difference between general admission and "programs or activities that receive Federal financial assistance". While I'm not saying this is right, it appears to be the current letter of the law. If, for example, race were a determining factor in who works on one of the R&D projects at Harvard that is funded by federal money it would be different than this situation.

Does each student at Harvard get federal financial assistance through Harvard? Not state financial assistance but federal. The different matters to the letter of the law.

It looks like the devil is in the details.

Almost every college is subject to this law because they accept federal grants and loans for students during the admissions process.

There are only a few conservative religious schools that are exceptions. They refuse all federal funds to prevent such laws applying. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grove_City_College_v._Bell

Thanks for the pointer. It also says...

> However, the Court also held that the regulation would apply only to the institution's financial aid department, not to the school as a whole.

Yes, but that part of the decision was overruled as noted on the page:

> The decision by the Supreme Court was effectively overturned when the United States Congress subsequently passed the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987, which specified that recipients of federal funds must comply with civil rights laws in all areas, not just in the particular program or activity that received federal funding.

A judge just said it is ok discriminating at admission, another one will say it is ok to discriminate on hiring. It is just a logical path of thinking.

It isn't really a logical path of thinking - admissions policy at Harvard doesn't have anything to do with normal hiring policies nationwide

There are laws against discrimination for both. Someone else just posted the link for the legislation for admission.

Unlike college admissions, the Supreme Court has since 1964 never upheld the idea that race could be an acceptable element of hiring practices.

Hiring =/= college admissions. Just because they both contain 'discrimination' in the complaint doesn't mean they are logically all that linked.

No it isn’t. Affirmative action programs in employment are legal.

No, they are not.

https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/practices/

Diversity efforts sit in a gray area that is nowhere close to race quotas.

Race quotas are illegal in both employment and admissions but affirmative action is not.

The trick is that affirmative action is sold as an effort to negate other discrimination.

https://definitions.uslegal.com/a/affirmative-action/

I-1000 is literally called "Affirmative Action and Diversity Commission Measure"

https://ballotpedia.org/Washington_Initiative_1000,_Affirmat...

It's a referendum. It's not law yet.

You'd be more right if it was passed, but it's not.