The Supreme Court has sent shockwaves through the educational system after making a decision that may lead to racial discrimination.

Today (June 29), the United States’ highest court declared affirmative action programs at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina unconstitutional. In the ruling, the court stated that the schools’ use of racial considerations in admissions violated the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection, per The Washington Post. With the decision comes an end to systems established to help Black and Latino students obtain higher education.

In a written decision letter, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. spoke on behalf of the conservative members in the majority. “The student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual — not on the basis of race,” he wrote. “Many universities have for too long done just the opposite. And in doing so, they have concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned but the color of their skin. Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice.”

Specifically, Roberts noted Harvard and UNC’s admission programs “lack sufficiently focused and measurable objectives warranting the use of race, unavoidably employ race in a negative manner, involve racial stereotyping, and lack meaningful end points.”

Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined fellow Judge Sonia Sotomayor in her opposition to the court’s ruling. “Today, this court stands in the way and rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress. It holds that race can no longer be used in a limited way in college admissions to achieve such critical benefits,” Sotomayor said. “In so holding, the court cements a superficial rule of colorblindness as a constitutional principle in an endemically segregated society where race has always mattered and continues to matter.” Jackson recused herself from the Harvard case because she served on a board at the university.