President Donald Trump’s administration took steps Tuesday to rescind Obama-era guidelines that encouraged schools to take applicants’ race and ethnicity into account to promote diversity.

The move indicates federal support for schools to adopt a race-blind admissions process and brings the highly contentious issue of affirmative action once again to the fore.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld — though with an increasingly narrow view — the practice of considering race as a factor in order to ensure minorities are integrated at elite US educational institutions.

But the policy shift enacted by the Trump administration and the retirement of key swing vote Justice Anthony Kennedy at the end of this month — with his replacement likely far more conservative — spell trouble for affirmative action.