Insights

Washington – August 3, 2022: On August 1, a Crowell & Moring team filed an amicus brief in the two affirmative action cases pending before the Supreme Court on behalf of leaders at Howard University and other Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), as well as the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education, the national membership association of the nation’s 106 HBCUs. The HBCU leaders’ brief pointed to Harvard, the University of North Carolina, and other historically White universities’ long history of excluding Black students and its present-day effects, which include continued underrepresentation.

The Fourth Circuit and an Arizona district court both have grappled with the issue of whether a school’s 501(c)(3) tax-exempt-status is a form of “federal financial assistance” under various federal nondiscrimination provisions.  For a nonpublic school to be subject to statutes such as Title VI or Title XI, the school must be a recipient of federal financial assistance.

On June 29, 2023, the Supreme Court, in Students for Fair Admissions (“SFFA”) v. Presidents and Fellows of Harvard College and SFFA v. University of North Carolina, held that race-based admissions programs violate the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause (which applies to public institutions such as UNC), as well as Title VI (which applies to private institutions like Harvard).

The NAIC has adopted a new Climate Risk Disclosure Survey (“CRDS”) as a means to modernize climate-related disclosure requirements and enhance transparency of how insurers manage their climate-related risks. The new NAIC survey is aligned with the international standard of the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosure (TCFD).