Good morning. Welcome to Axios today. It's Friday, June 30th. I'm Nyla Boudou. Here's

what we're covering today, bringing Lesbian bars back from the brink of extinction. But

first, the end of affirmative action for college admissions. That's today's one big thing.

The Supreme Court yesterday struck down the use of affirmative action, meaning colleges

and universities may no longer explicitly consider an applicant's race when deciding admissions.

Discrimination still exists in America. Today's decision does not change that. It's a simple fact.

If a student has overcome, had to overcome adversity on their path to education, college should

recognize and value that. That's President Biden yesterday at the White House. The

Justices ruled six to three against the admissions processes at Harvard and the University

of North Carolina. Axios's sandbaker is here with how this decision will reshape college

admissions across the country. Hi, Sam. Hi, Nyla. Sam, the Supreme Court overturned more than

40 years of precedent and higher education admissions after historically backing affirmative action.

Can you help us understand how they got to this decision? So the writing has been on the wall

here for a while. Yes, the Supreme Court upheld affirmative action, but you started to see,

particularly among the conservatives, sort of a sense, sometimes explicit asking how much longer

do we need this? That is a through line in the way that the conservative Justices and John Roberts

in particular approach a lot of policies designed to correct racial wrongs. What was their

justification for why they feel like affirmative action is no longer necessary at American universities?

So the legal justification, they said it was a violation of the Constitution's

guarantee of equal protection under the law. You know, if you just look at it very narrowly,

it is a racial preference, and that's what the conservatives latched on to. And of course,

you saw the Liberal Justices putting back some of that context about why these programs exist

...