We are ending our live coverage. We'll be back tomorrow with the Supreme Court's final rulings for the summer session.

You can read the latest on the affirmative action ruling here.

This page was brought to you by Brandon Livesay and Marianna Brady, with Adam Durbin, Kayla Epstein and Sam Cabral writing. Jessica Parker and Holly Honderich reported from outside the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court's six conservative justices have found that race-conscious admissions programmes are unconstitutional, effectively ending affirmative action at US universities.

Here's what to know:

• Writing the majority decision, Chief Justice Roberts said the two affirmative action programmes in this case, “unavoidably employ race in a negative manner” and “involve racial stereotyping"
• All three liberal justices dissented, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor saying the decision was "further entrenching racial inequality in education"
• President Biden expressed his concern at the ruling, saying he "strongly disagrees" with the decision
• The 6-3 decision will have impact far beyond US schools, and may force employers to change the way they hire
• Affirmative action first made its way into policy in the 1960s, as many all-white schools began admitting minority students

We have been hearing reactions from both sides of the aisle since the Supreme Court issued its ruling.

Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy said the decision now means "no American should be denied educational opportunities because of race".

Democrat Chuck Schumer, the Senate's majority leader, meanwhile described the ruling as having "put a giant roadblock in our country’s march toward racial justice".

He warned "students of color will face an admission cycle next year with fewer opportunities to attend the same colleges and universities than their parents and older siblings".

Jessica Parker
Reporting from the Supreme Court

I’ve just met Kelly, Sunny and Jack outside the Supreme Court here in Washington DC.

As university students, they’re deeply unhappy with today’s decision.

Jack, who’s part of an Asian Pacific advocacy group, says civil rights organisations will keep fighting for affirmative action.

Kelly, who is Chinese American, says she is disheartened that this case argued that Asian students are being discriminated against.

“I feel misrepresented,” she says.

“It’s disheartening to see, especially Chinese people, advocating against affirmative action and labelling themselves as speaking for every single Asian American when in reality they’re only looking out for themselves.”

The Supreme Court's ruling centres on whether or not there is racial equity in race-based college admissions practices - but critics would argue it also raises questions of privilege and fairness.

Elite universities in the US often admit large numbers of students whose parents or relatives have previously attended and donated money to their institutions.

Such students typically fit into a category known as legacy admissions. They are predominantly white Americans, since most elite universities only began admitting large numbers of minority students a generation ago.

In fact, a 2019 study published in the National Bureau of Economic Research found that more than 40% of white students admitted to Harvard were recruited athletes, legacy students, children of faculty and staff, or on the dean’s interest list.

Roughly three-quarters of that student population “would have been rejected" if they had not received preferential treatment during the admissions process, the report found.

By contrast, the researchers said, less than 16% of black, Latino and Asian American students at Harvard were legacy admissions.

The Biden administration has called on the Department of Education to look into legacy admissions practices.

Anthony Zurcher
BBC North America correspondent

The White House has said that it is “reviewing” the Supreme Court’s decision on affirmative action in college admissions.

The reality, however, is that there is little the administration can offer universities looking to get around the direct and sweeping nature of the court’s ruling.

The administration has said it will offer guidance for how a university might try to achieve the goal of a diverse student body without considering the race of applicants.

University officials will have to consider, however, that any policy with even the whiff of a racial element could provoke a lawsuit.

And with this new Supreme Court ruling, the landscape for such a legal challenge would be very favourable.

Image source, Getty Images

Supporters call him a patriot. Critics call him a racist.

The cases challenging admissions practices based on race at Harvard and the University of North Carolina were driven in large part by a man named Edward Blum.

Blum, 71, is the founder of Students for Fair Admissions, the group behind the two lawsuits heard by the Supreme Court this term.

A financial advisor by trade, he has spent the past several decades spearheading legal efforts to remove racial preferences from higher education and other aspects of American life.

He has argued eight cases before the court despite never having gone to law school.

US conservatives have long claimed legislative overreach in the efforts to redress racial disparities in education, and have lauded Blum for his efforts, while liberals say he is pulling back years of progress to make historically white and male institutions more diverse.

Blum's argument: “You cannot remedy past discrimination with new discrimination."

Biden has called on the US Department of Education to analyse practices that could build more inclusive student bodies and practices that hold that back.

He cites legacy admissions - the practice of giving preference to applicants whose parents have attended the school - as an example.

Biden controls federal government agencies and has the power to make certain directives to ensure his policy vision. These agencies can in turn conduct studies, assess policy proposals, and issue guidance.

However, these changes might not be permanent; a future president could ask the agency to take a different course.

President Biden has finished speaking, and as he left the press briefing he was asked by a journalist if this was a "rogue court".

He stopped at the doorway for a moment before replying, "this is not a normal court".

Image source, Getty Images

"Opportunity is for everyone, not just the few," Biden continues.

The president offers guidance for US universities and colleges. He urges them to continue a commitment to diverse student bodies, and take into account the adversity each student has had to overcome.

That means examining where a student grew up and what challenges they have encountered, Biden says, "including racial discrimination".

"Discrimination still exists in America," he says, before repeating again: "Discrimination still exists in America.

President Biden says his belief remains that colleges are stronger when they are racially diverse and "tapping into the full range of talent in this nation".

"We cannot let this decision be the last word," he repeats twice.

"It cannot change what America stands for."

He adds: "We need a new path forward."

President Joe Biden has started speaking, and he begins by saying the Supreme Court has "once again walked away from decades of precedent".

The court has effectively ended affirmative action across the country, he says, a decision he "strongly" disagrees with.

"Affirmative action is so misunderstood," he says.

We're still waiting on the president's press conference to start, so in the meantime let's take a look at what Harvard had to say about today's decision.

In a statement from the university's leadership team, Harvard says it will continue to operate on the "fundamental principle that deep and transformative teaching, learning, and research depend upon a community comprising people of many backgrounds, perspectives, and lived experiences".

Image source, Getty Images

According to an updated White House daily schedule, President Joe Biden will deliver remarks shortly on today's Supreme Court ruling on race-based college admissions.

Biden is expected to speak at 12:30 local time (17:30 BST).

Stay with us as we bring you live updates from the White House.

Holly Honderich
Reporting from the Supreme Court

One of the plaintiffs in today’s case argued that Harvard’s affirmative action policy discriminated against Asian students.

Yukong Zhao, president of the Asian American Coalition for Education, says he agrees.

His group was one of several Asian American organisations who publicly supported the case against affirmative action.

“Today is a great day for Asian Americans and all Americans,” Zhao said outside the court.

“This decision will preserve meritocracy, which is the bedrock of the American dream."

Zhao says he supports more funding for K-12 education, and more support for Black and Hispanic students. But affirmative action, he says, made Asian Americans “second class citizens”.

American education will now be “colour blind”, he said.

Angie Gabeau, the president of the Harvard Black Students' Association, has told the BBC she is "very discouraged, but not surprised" by today's court ruling.

Gabeau, who is 21 and entering her final year at Harvard, says she believes her race "100% played a factor in my application", including through an application essay, in which she mentions attending a predominantly white high school.

That, she says, is because "race affects my every day life, I don't live without this identity, it affects everything that I am and brought to Harvard".

She worries that "students that are affected by their race in this country will now feel obligated to trauma-dump in their applications to show how race is affecting their lives".

Noting that colleges that already claim colour-blindness in their applications show "the reality of no affirmative action", she argues that Harvard already lacks real diversity in many ways and the problem will quickly get worse following today's decision.

"Most of the black and brown students on campus already come from elite private schools," she says, and few represent under-privileged parts of the country or come from under-resourced schools.

Affirmative action - what happens next?published at 17:07 British Summer Time 29 June 2023

17:07 BST 29 June 2023

Nomia Iqbal
BBC News, Washington

Affirmative action has lasted the course for decades by relying on moderate and liberal justices. With the bench now firmly a conservative majority, its future was always on the line.

Designed to give people a level playing field, affirmative action has become somewhat of a paradox, whereby many who challenged it – including people of colour - said it discriminated them in turn.

Quotas were never used to keep people in or out - it's illegal - but those against said the policies were still harmful and divisive.

What happens next is rather unknown.

Universities that are well resourced may rely on indirect methods to push forward their commitment to diversity: zip codes, household incomes, outreach programs.

But nine states already know what it’s like. California, Washington, Florida, Michigan, Nebraska, Arizona, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Idaho don't have it.

California banned it all the way back in 1996 and Idaho only three years ago. They say they’ve struggled to recruit people that are more representative of the population.

Therefore the truth is there aren’t many concrete lessons on how to boost the numbers of ethnic minority students without affirmative action.

In Harvard University's defence of race-based affirmative action, which can be read in full here, external, the school released projected numbers of a student body should race no longer be allowed as a factor in admissions.

The school said that:

"Based on modeling from the Class of 2019, if Harvard were to stop considering race, the percent of the class that is African American would drop from 14% to 6%, and the percent that is Latinx would drop from 14% to 9%. The percent that is Asian American would increase slightly from 24% to 27%."

Image source, Harvard University

Donald Trump, who appointed three of the conservative supreme court justices during his time as president, has hailed today's decision and called it a "great day for America".

Writing on his Truth Social platform, Trump says: "People with extraordinary ability and everything else necessary for success, including future greatness for our country, are finally being rewarded."

Hailing the "amazing" result, Trump added the ruling will also keep the US "competitive with the rest of the world".