SCOTUS - affirmative action Flashcards
what is affirmative action?
a programme giving members of a previously disadvantaged minority group a head start in higher education/employment.
equality of outcome = overcoming racial disadvantage by using busing, quotas, and affirmative action.
also known as positive discrimination.
what are quotas and how do they work?
programmes which give a certain percentage of places in higher education or employment to people from disadvantaged minorities.
giving certain groups a greater head start by using preferential practices to facilitate diversity and multiculturalism.
what arguments do conservatives make against affirmative action?
they believe it is unfair and patronising to majorities - they argue that the constitution, federal, and state law should be colour blind.
SCOTUS - Gratz v Bollinger 2003
court ruled 6-3 that the University of Michigan’s affirmative action based admissions programme for its undergraduate students was unconstitutional because it was too mechanistic.
all BAME students were automatically awarded 20/150 points required for admission.
Justice Clarence Thomas (only black member of the court then) argued that racial diversity programmes do NOTHING for those too poor or uneducated to participate in higher education.
SCOTUS - 2007 Parents Involved in Community Schools Inc v Seattle School District
Meredith v Jefferson County Board of Education
saw the court declare it unconstitutional to assign students to public schools solely for the purpose of achieving racial balance.
both of the school systems were centred upon racial quotas between white and POC representation, both of which would not otherwise achieve in schools because of racially divided housing patterns in Seattle, Washington, and Kentucky.
both sides of the court in the 5-4 ruling saw themselves as protecting the equal protection rights announced in Brown decision in 1954.
the Chief Justice Roberts and his conservative colleagues on the court had a concern that allocating students to schools on the basis of racial quotas violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
net effect: to permit universities to continue to use race as a ‘plus factor’ in evaluating applicants, provided that they take care to evaluate each applicant’s ability individually.
SCOTUS - Fisher v University of Texas 2013
Abigail Fisher sued the UoT when she was rejected, claiming that POC students with less impressive academic qualifications got in - SCOTUS ruled that the university’s use of race in its admissions policy must be subjected to stricter scrutiny because it involved possible discrimination - federal appeals court was therefore instructed to rehear the case using the stricter scrutiny.
July 2014 = case reheard and found in favour of UoT
Fisher appealed AGAIN to SCOTUS - and in 2016, though people assumed the court would uphold Ms Fisher’s claims, in a 4-3 ruling, the court upheld the appeal court ruling!!!
has affirmative action worked in achieving its aim?
1960 + 1995 stats
between 1960 and 1995, the percentage of black people aged 25-29 who graduated from university rose from 5% to 15%.
as president Clinton remarked in 1995, ‘affirmative action has been good for America’
how does affirmative action inadvertently disadvantage POC?
US law schools study
in a study of US law schools in the Nov 2004, Stanford Law Review, Richard Sandler found that putting black students into classes with white students who had higher SAT scores = close to half of black students ending up in the bottom tenth of their classes.
SOLUTIONS
option one - conservatives
conservatives favour abolition of the affirmative action programmes - favour equality of opportunity, not outcome.
conservatives would point to immigrants from southeast Asia who have succeeded without affirmative action benefits.
they argue discrimination today isn’t rooted in the past but is rooted in the lifestyle choices we make - drugs, alcohol, and parenting.
SOLUTIONS
option two - moderate
there must come a time where these programmes are unnecessary, despite them achieving so much so far.
e.g., Justice O’Connor in 2003 Grutter decision when she announced a recommendation for a 25-year limit to affirmative action programmes.
SOLUTIONS
option three - ‘mend it, don’t end it’
Bill Clinton - programmes will need tweaking but reform, not abolition , is what is needed.
SOLUTION
option four - progressive liberals
affirmative action needs to continue because there is still a lot to do going forward - they point to how POC are under-repped in bachelor degree awards at American universities.
death of George Floyd in 2020 and wider race issues such as the Confederate statues and wealth inequality = strengthen argument for more initiatives to improve racial minorities’ lives.
