On June 29th 2023, in a 6-3 ruling, the SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) rejected race-based affirmative action in higher education institutions. This means that an applicant's race or ethnicity can no longer be considered as a factor in college or university admissions decisions.

Currently, there are many illegal ways to gain access to knowledge behind paywalls, including but not limited to the unauthorised distribution of PDFs and copies of journal articles and books, hacking journal databases, websites such as 12ft and Sci-Hub, etc.