Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) is a nonprofit legal advocacy organization founded in 2014 by conservative activist Edward Blum for the purpose of challenging affirmative action admissions policies at schools.[1][2] Blum is also the founder of Project on Fair Representation, with a goal to end racial classifications in education, voting procedures, legislative redistricting, and employment.[3][4]
SFFA has been described by its opponents as an anti-affirmative action group that objects to the use of race as one of the factors in college admissions.[5]
SFFA is an offshoot of the Project on Fair Representation. SFFA's federal lawsuits have targeted Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Blum has set up websites to seek out plaintiffs.[6][7][8]
Unlike the Fisher case, in which the plaintiff, Abigail Fisher, made herself public, the students rejected by Harvard and UNC have not revealed their identities because they want to shield themselves from potential retaliation.[9]
Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College[10] was dismissed in October 2019,[11] and that ruling was subsequently upheld on appeal.[12] In February 2021, however, SFFA petitioned the Supreme Court of the United States to review the case.[13] In June 2023, the Supreme Court issued a landmark opinion that ruled affirmative action programs in college admissions unconstitutional.[14]
In September 2023, SFFA filed a lawsuit challenging the use of race and ethnicity as admissions factors at the United States Military Academy, as the Supreme Court exempted military academies from its ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard. In February 2024 the organisation was blocked from appealing a decision to the Supreme Court where it failed in lower courts to stop West Point Academy from using race as a factor in admissions to the military academy.[15]