Every racially based preference system – aka Affirmative Action programs – in the country could be struck down when the U.S. Supreme Court takes up Fisher v. University of Texas this fall.

The 13^th, 14^th, and 15^th Amendments to the Constitution were passed after the Civil War. These Reconstruction Era amendments abolished slavery, defined U.S. citizenship, extended part of the Bill of Rights to the states, and—most important here—declared due process and equal protection of the law to be rights of all persons in this country, regardless of their race.