An affirmative action backlash that began in California and migrated
to Michigan has now reached the Supreme Court, with university
admissions and more potentially on the line.
In one of the new
term’s highest-profile cases, the court on Tuesday will consider a
Michigan ballot measure that bans the use of race in public university
admissions. Inspired by a similar measure in California, the Michigan
policy has divided other states, while giving court conservatives their
latest chance to roll back race-based preferences.
“This measure
was so polarizing that it created a racial divide,” Mark Rosenbaum, the
chief counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern
California, said Thursday. “Instead of healing the nation’s wounds, it
actually opens those wounds.”
Read on...
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Showing posts with label affirmative action. Show all posts
Showing posts with label affirmative action. Show all posts
Supreme Court tests for civil rights
As the Supreme Court begins its 2012 term Monday, two cases loom ominously large for civil rights advocates.
As the Supreme Court begins its 2012 term Monday, two cases loom ominously large for civil rights advocates who fear that the Roberts court is itching to prematurely declare victory in the long legal war against racial discrimination. One, which the court is expected to accept for review although it hasn't done so yet, involves a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The other concerns a program at the University of Texas that allows race to be considered in admissions decisions.
Like the challenge to the constitutionality of President Obama's healthcare law, these cases will test the commitment of the court's conservatives, and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. in particular, to judicial restraint.
Legal conservatives abhorred "Obamacare," and they are equally critical of both affirmative action and the Voting Rights Act's requirement that states with a history of racial discrimination in voting "pre-clear" their election procedures with the Justice Department or a federal court in Washington. Such extraordinary measures to protect African Americans and other minorities may have been necessary in the past, the argument goes, but racial progress (symbolized for some by the election four years ago of a black president) requires an end to such initiatives and a reaffirmation of the ideal of a "colorblind" Constitution.
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