Sheesh! What's wrong with everyone here! I was expecting to see at least a couple threads on this! (Well, ok, there's the "America as dictatorship" thread, but still...)
I was so thoroughly shocked and disgusted when I heard the news on the radio this morning, I almost drove off the road.
Now I guess I'll patiently wait for the Democrats to reinstate segregation, then maybe slavery.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/929326.asp?vts=062320031050
MSNBC STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
WASHINGTON, June 23 — A divided U.S. Supreme Court on Monday upheld a University of Michigan law school admissions policy that gives minorities an edge, but the justices overturned a second policy that relied on a point system to determine which undergraduates are admitted.
THE DECISIONS maintained a distinction that the high court made in the 1978 Bakke decision, striking down a point system used by the university to determine undergraduate admissions, ruling that the system is tantamount to a quota.
But the split decision did not go as far as opponents of affirmative action had wanted, as the court endorsed a separate program used by the university’s law school that gives race less prominence in the admissions decision-making process, while seeking to attain a “critical mass†of minority students.
The court divided in both cases. It upheld the law school program by a 5-4 vote, with Justice Sandra Day O’Connor siding with the court’s more liberal justices to decide the case.
The court split 6-3 in finding the undergraduate program unconstitutional. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote the majority opinion in the undergraduate case, joined by O’Connor and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Stephen Breyer.
Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented.
The cases are the most significant test of affirmative action to reach the court in a generation. At issue was whether racial preference programs unconstitutionally discriminate against white students.
The majority opinion in the law-school case said the policy preserves the concept of affirmative action for minorities who might otherwise be underrepresented on top campuses.
USE MUST BE ‘NARROWLY TAILORED’
“The (Constitution’s) Equal Protection Clause does not prohibit the law school’s narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body,†O’Connor wrote.
In the case involving the university’s undergraduate admissions, the high court said the point system used by the school was a thinly disguised quota.
While it set no fixed target for the number of minority students who should get in, the point-based evaluation system gave minority applicants a 20-point boost.
“The university’s policy, which automatically distributes 20 points, or one-fifth of the points needed to guarantee admission, to every single underrepresented minority applicant solely because of race, is not narrowly tailored to achieve the interest in educational diversity,†that Michigan claimed justified the policy, said Rehnquist, writing for the majority.
Government has a compelling interest in promoting racial diversity on campus, but the undergraduate school’s admissions policy is not the way to get there, he wrote.
The university’s president, Mary Sue Coleman, hailed the decisions, saying the court had established a “road map†for schools to follow in crafting affirmative action programs.
“The doors are open,†she told NBC News. “People can come to the university of all races and backgrounds.â€
But Terry Pell, president of the Center for Individual Rights, the public interest law firm representing the white plaintiffs, said that many schools will likely abandon racial preferences rather than run the risk of legal challenges.
June 23 — University of Michigan students are divided in their reactions to the top court’s ruling.
“It’s true that a school can avail itself of the law school rationale, but it is going to find itself in court pretty quickly, and that’s expensive and risky,†he said. “I think most schools are going to what hundreds of schools have done - achieve diversity without race preferences.â€
Pell said the court also emphasized that “there’s got to be a time limit to this — whether or not there are race-neutral alternatives.â€
The law school ruling follows the path the court set a generation ago, when it outlawed quotas but still left room for schools to improve the odds for minority applicants.
The decisions will affect admissions practices at public colleges nationwide, as well as scholarship, tutoring, internships and fellowship programs reserved for blacks, Latinos and Native Americans.
IMPACT WILL BE FAR-REACHING
But the court’s rationale is expected to send a wide ripple through private colleges and universities, other government decision-making and the business world.
“This court has long recognized that ‘education is the very foundation of good citizenship,’†O’Connor wrote, quoting from the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling of nearly 50 years ago.
“For this reason, the diffusion of knowledge and opportunity through public institutions of higher education must be accessible to all individuals regardless of race or ethnicity,†O’Connor wrote. “Effective participation by members of all racial and ethnic groups in the civic life of our nation is essential if the dream of one nation, indivisible, is to be realized.â€
Opponents of affirmative action had hoped the Supreme Court would use this opportunity to ban most consideration of race in any government decisions. The court is far more conservative than in 1978, when it last ruled on affirmative action in higher education admissions, and the justices have put heavy conditions on government affirmative action in other arenas over the past decade.
The rulings came in two cases in which white applicants rejected by the University of Michigan and its law school challenged the school’s admissions policies as unconstitutional racial discrimination.
The students contended that black, Latino and American Indian candidates with the same qualifications were given preferential treatment.
A 20-POINT BONUS
The Michigan undergraduate school gave minority applicants a 20-point bonus out of a possible 150 points, while various measures of academic performance, extracurricular activity and other attributes were generally worth fewer points.
The school has also “flagged†minority applications, making it easier to keep an applicant in the pool even if he or she flunked an initial review.
• A question of fairness
The law school used a vaguer system intended to yield a “critical mass†of minorities in each class, generally around 10 percent or more.
At stake was the meaning of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause which says no state shall “deny to any person... the equal protection of the laws.â€
In the 1978 Bakke decision, the court had held that it was not a violation of the Equal Protection Clause for a state university to use an applicant’s race as one factor among several factors in determining whether to admit him.
In the Bakke case, Justice Harry Blackmun wrote in his concurring opinion that, “In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race. There is no other way. And in order to treat some persons equally, we must treat them differently.â€
The legal test established by previous Supreme Court decisions is whether Michigan had a “compelling governmental interest†that justified using racial and ethnic preferences.
The justices ruled that the university did have such a compelling interest.
MANY WEIGH IN
The Court received nearly 100 friend-of-the-court briefs in the Michigan cases.
Seventy-eight briefs supported the university, arguing that affirmative action based on racial preferences has a place in American life, from the classroom to the boardroom. Those briefs were filed by various groups that range from the American Bar Association representing lawyers to a group of retired military officers and a number of large corporations.
Nineteen briefs backed the white students, including those filed by conservative groups, the Bush administration, and the state of Florida and its governor, Jeb Bush, the president’s brother.
The time issue was one of the questions the court was implicitly addressing in the case. Had the time passed for preferences, or were they still needed to overcome the effects of discrimination against blacks, Latinos, and American Indians?
According to the account in John Jeffries’ biography of Justice Lewis Powell, who wrote the Bakke decision, when the justices were debating the Bakke case in their closed-door conference in 1978, Justice John Paul Stevens said preferences would be acceptable only as a temporary measure, not as a permanent solution. Powell agreed.
Stevens suggested that blacks would not need preferences much longer. But Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first black justice in the court’s history, disagreed, saying preferences would be needed for another hundred years. “This remark left Powell speechless, according to Jeffries. He “recoiled from the prospect of generation upon generation of racial quotas.â€
MSNBC.com’s Tom Curry, NBC News’ Pete Williams and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
I was so thoroughly shocked and disgusted when I heard the news on the radio this morning, I almost drove off the road.
Now I guess I'll patiently wait for the Democrats to reinstate segregation, then maybe slavery.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/929326.asp?vts=062320031050
MSNBC STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
WASHINGTON, June 23 — A divided U.S. Supreme Court on Monday upheld a University of Michigan law school admissions policy that gives minorities an edge, but the justices overturned a second policy that relied on a point system to determine which undergraduates are admitted.
THE DECISIONS maintained a distinction that the high court made in the 1978 Bakke decision, striking down a point system used by the university to determine undergraduate admissions, ruling that the system is tantamount to a quota.
But the split decision did not go as far as opponents of affirmative action had wanted, as the court endorsed a separate program used by the university’s law school that gives race less prominence in the admissions decision-making process, while seeking to attain a “critical mass†of minority students.
The court divided in both cases. It upheld the law school program by a 5-4 vote, with Justice Sandra Day O’Connor siding with the court’s more liberal justices to decide the case.
The court split 6-3 in finding the undergraduate program unconstitutional. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote the majority opinion in the undergraduate case, joined by O’Connor and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Stephen Breyer.
Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented.
The cases are the most significant test of affirmative action to reach the court in a generation. At issue was whether racial preference programs unconstitutionally discriminate against white students.
The majority opinion in the law-school case said the policy preserves the concept of affirmative action for minorities who might otherwise be underrepresented on top campuses.
USE MUST BE ‘NARROWLY TAILORED’
“The (Constitution’s) Equal Protection Clause does not prohibit the law school’s narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body,†O’Connor wrote.
In the case involving the university’s undergraduate admissions, the high court said the point system used by the school was a thinly disguised quota.
While it set no fixed target for the number of minority students who should get in, the point-based evaluation system gave minority applicants a 20-point boost.
“The university’s policy, which automatically distributes 20 points, or one-fifth of the points needed to guarantee admission, to every single underrepresented minority applicant solely because of race, is not narrowly tailored to achieve the interest in educational diversity,†that Michigan claimed justified the policy, said Rehnquist, writing for the majority.
Government has a compelling interest in promoting racial diversity on campus, but the undergraduate school’s admissions policy is not the way to get there, he wrote.
The university’s president, Mary Sue Coleman, hailed the decisions, saying the court had established a “road map†for schools to follow in crafting affirmative action programs.
“The doors are open,†she told NBC News. “People can come to the university of all races and backgrounds.â€
But Terry Pell, president of the Center for Individual Rights, the public interest law firm representing the white plaintiffs, said that many schools will likely abandon racial preferences rather than run the risk of legal challenges.
June 23 — University of Michigan students are divided in their reactions to the top court’s ruling.
“It’s true that a school can avail itself of the law school rationale, but it is going to find itself in court pretty quickly, and that’s expensive and risky,†he said. “I think most schools are going to what hundreds of schools have done - achieve diversity without race preferences.â€
Pell said the court also emphasized that “there’s got to be a time limit to this — whether or not there are race-neutral alternatives.â€
The law school ruling follows the path the court set a generation ago, when it outlawed quotas but still left room for schools to improve the odds for minority applicants.
The decisions will affect admissions practices at public colleges nationwide, as well as scholarship, tutoring, internships and fellowship programs reserved for blacks, Latinos and Native Americans.
IMPACT WILL BE FAR-REACHING
But the court’s rationale is expected to send a wide ripple through private colleges and universities, other government decision-making and the business world.
“This court has long recognized that ‘education is the very foundation of good citizenship,’†O’Connor wrote, quoting from the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling of nearly 50 years ago.
“For this reason, the diffusion of knowledge and opportunity through public institutions of higher education must be accessible to all individuals regardless of race or ethnicity,†O’Connor wrote. “Effective participation by members of all racial and ethnic groups in the civic life of our nation is essential if the dream of one nation, indivisible, is to be realized.â€
Opponents of affirmative action had hoped the Supreme Court would use this opportunity to ban most consideration of race in any government decisions. The court is far more conservative than in 1978, when it last ruled on affirmative action in higher education admissions, and the justices have put heavy conditions on government affirmative action in other arenas over the past decade.
The rulings came in two cases in which white applicants rejected by the University of Michigan and its law school challenged the school’s admissions policies as unconstitutional racial discrimination.
The students contended that black, Latino and American Indian candidates with the same qualifications were given preferential treatment.
A 20-POINT BONUS
The Michigan undergraduate school gave minority applicants a 20-point bonus out of a possible 150 points, while various measures of academic performance, extracurricular activity and other attributes were generally worth fewer points.
The school has also “flagged†minority applications, making it easier to keep an applicant in the pool even if he or she flunked an initial review.
• A question of fairness
The law school used a vaguer system intended to yield a “critical mass†of minorities in each class, generally around 10 percent or more.
At stake was the meaning of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause which says no state shall “deny to any person... the equal protection of the laws.â€
In the 1978 Bakke decision, the court had held that it was not a violation of the Equal Protection Clause for a state university to use an applicant’s race as one factor among several factors in determining whether to admit him.
In the Bakke case, Justice Harry Blackmun wrote in his concurring opinion that, “In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race. There is no other way. And in order to treat some persons equally, we must treat them differently.â€
The legal test established by previous Supreme Court decisions is whether Michigan had a “compelling governmental interest†that justified using racial and ethnic preferences.
The justices ruled that the university did have such a compelling interest.
MANY WEIGH IN
The Court received nearly 100 friend-of-the-court briefs in the Michigan cases.
Seventy-eight briefs supported the university, arguing that affirmative action based on racial preferences has a place in American life, from the classroom to the boardroom. Those briefs were filed by various groups that range from the American Bar Association representing lawyers to a group of retired military officers and a number of large corporations.
Nineteen briefs backed the white students, including those filed by conservative groups, the Bush administration, and the state of Florida and its governor, Jeb Bush, the president’s brother.
The time issue was one of the questions the court was implicitly addressing in the case. Had the time passed for preferences, or were they still needed to overcome the effects of discrimination against blacks, Latinos, and American Indians?
According to the account in John Jeffries’ biography of Justice Lewis Powell, who wrote the Bakke decision, when the justices were debating the Bakke case in their closed-door conference in 1978, Justice John Paul Stevens said preferences would be acceptable only as a temporary measure, not as a permanent solution. Powell agreed.
Stevens suggested that blacks would not need preferences much longer. But Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first black justice in the court’s history, disagreed, saying preferences would be needed for another hundred years. “This remark left Powell speechless, according to Jeffries. He “recoiled from the prospect of generation upon generation of racial quotas.â€
MSNBC.com’s Tom Curry, NBC News’ Pete Williams and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
don't get me started.
