CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (CBS19 NEWS) -- UVA law professor Deborah Hellman is warning the recent Supreme Court’s decision to strike down affirmative action could backfire by pushing race even higher into the discussion.

The Court ruled 6-3 that higher education institutions can no longer consider a student’s admission status based solely on race, forcing colleges and universities across the country to reexamine admissions practices. 

Professor Hellman says the change may leave some minority students feeling they need to explain race relations in admission essays.

“Does that mean that candidates who haven’t suffered discrimination can talk about how they did this really cool thing with the science club or what have you? And every racial minority then is forced to turn their one short college application into an essay of their experience of racial discrimination,” said Hellman.

Hellman says the irony lies in what institutions are not impacted: military academies.

“Racial diversity in higher education is only worth potentially preserving insofar as it might be needed to prepare Black Americans and other underrepresented minorities for success in the bunker, not the boardroom,” wrote Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in a dissent.

Hellman said the military made the argument that in order to be an effective fighting force, it’s difficult to have an officer corps that’s predominantly white.

She says only time will tell if the ruling leads to resegregations.

“Nobody really knows and I’ve seen projections all over the map with that question,” she said.