Sarah Lawrence College takes swipe at the Supreme Court, inviting students to write their application essay about the court's ruling that tossed affirmative action

• Sarah Lawrence College is inviting undergrad applicants to write about how the Supreme Court's decision to overturn affirmative action is impacting their lives. 
• In June, the Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to consider race in college applications. 
• But Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that students can still, in essays, write about how race has affected their lives. 

Sarah Lawrence College has a unique response the Supreme Court's June decision to overturn affirmative action: encourage college applicants to make it the topic of their essay

Sarah Lawrence's admissions website says prospective students applying to be undergraduates at the small liberal arts college in Yonkers, New York, for the 2023-2024 school year should use the Common App.

As a supplement to that, "there may be more you want to tell us that just didn't quite fit into the rest of the application," the admissions site says. Students are then invited to choose from three additional essay prompts to aid their application materials. 

The third prompt points directly to the Supreme Court and its decision.

It specifically calls out Chief Justice John Roberts' written opinion, which states that although colleges and universities shouldn't consider race as it stands alone, they can consider how race has affected an applicant's life.

"In a 2023 majority decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, 'Nothing prohibits universities from considering an applicant's discussion of how race affected the applicant's life, so long as that discussion is concretely tied to a quality of character or unique ability that the particular applicant can contribute to the university,'" Sarah Lawrence's essay prompt reads. 

The prompt continues: "Drawing upon examples from your life, a quality of your character, and/or a unique ability you possess, describe how you believe your goals for a college education might be impacted, influenced, or affected by the Court's decision." 

Instead of doing as Roberts suggested by asking applicants to write about how race has affected their lives, Sarah Lawrence is instead inviting students to write about how their lives — and their futures — might be affected by the Court's decision to abolish affirmative action. 

When asked by Insider the reasoning for including this essay prompt in their undergraduate college application, representatives for Sarah Lawrence's admissions office did not immediately respond. 

The Supreme Court's decision led by the conservative justices found that affirmative action policies, which allowed schools to account for a student's race in order to accept more diverse applicants, were discriminatory.