Posted on 03/07/2013 12:10:59 PM PST by neverdem
In 2003, the Supreme Court held that the University of Michigan's law school could substantially relax its admissions standards in order to admit a "critical mass" of African-American and Hispanic students. Many observers interpreted that decision — Grutter v. Bollinger — as an open-ended embrace of affirmative action.
The University of Texas was among the many universities emboldened to ramp up its use of race-preferential admissions policies. In 2003, the university already had in place an admissions policy designed to raise the number of under-represented minority students attending its flagship campus in Austin by admitting the "top 10%" of the graduates of each Texas high school without regard to SAT scores. Soon after the Grutter decision, however, the university announced that it was still dissatisfied with the diversity of the student body at Austin, 21% of which was composed of under-represented minorities (16.9% Hispanic and 4.5% African-American), and that the school would be implementing race preferences to boost that diversity. Under the new policy, the proportion of the student body composed of Hispanics and African-Americans rose to 25%.
The result was a lawsuit. The plaintiff — Abigail Fisher — is a young woman from Texas whose academic credentials were good, but not quite up to the standards that whites and Asians must meet in order to gain admission. They were, however, above those necessary for African-American and Hispanic students. Fisher, who is white, was rejected, and wound up attending the less prestigious and (for out-of-state students) more expensive Louisiana State University. Her case — Fisher v. University of Texas — was argued before the Supreme Court in October. It will be decided sometime in the coming months.
The Court may decide Fisher on narrow grounds. There are several dimensions along which the University of Texas's race-preferential admissions policies are more aggressive than those in Grutter...
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalaffairs.com ...
I heard recently they are now extending the affirmative action system to women and reserving 20+ spots on the review for women, whether they earned it or not.
In a related story, 80% of New York public school graduates can’t read.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2994602/posts
In its defense, the NYC Department of Education said it has raised high school graduation rates by 40 percent over the last seven years.
...
ROFL
It seems a NYC high school diploma is now just as useless as being on the Harvard Law review!
bump
"Well-meaning", but "ultimately misguided"...the inevitable result of Mother O'Connor trying to apply compassionate motherly principles to conflict resolution -- when her job was to apply the Constitution.
"Meaning well" is not a "compelling national interest".
Judging from your name (Tulane), and reading your comments, we may have attended the same law school, because my experiences were the same.
When I was in law school, I had to take a class in legal writing. The teacher was a black woman who was just hired by the school. She was a graduate from Yale Law School and had worked at the public defender’s office in Richmond, VA before being hired. The teacher had an assistant, who was a current member of the School’s law review.
During the class, we had to write legal briefs, etc. every time I wrote a brief, the teacher gave me a low mark. When I asked the student advisor (writer for the law review) where I was wrong and how I could improve, the student looked at my paper and said there was nothing wrong and she would have given me a much higher mark. Unfortunately, only the teacher’s marks counted.
I ended the course with a mediocre grade and lots of frustration.
BTW, the teacher was let go at the end of the term. The reason - incompetency.
After I graduated, the new Dean, who had been a law clerk for Thurgood Marshall, decided there were not enough blacks in the school (at the time a top 20-25 school) the goal was 20% of the student body. The ones they let in had to take remedial English classes to get them up to speed with the non-black students.
When they graduated a vast majority of these students could not pass the bar exam.
Because of the lowering of the overall passing rate of the graduates, and other factors due to the programs implemented by the Dean, the schools reputation suffered. The school is not considered a “top 50” law school now.
This is their business school, but starting from a false premise makes you a liar in the end:
http://poetsandquants.com/2013/01/25/u-s-news-tosses-out-tulane-from-its-ranking/
Clearly, their belief in AA has not only degraded their school, but their morality.
It’s their first thought as well. The most evil, horrible thing about AA is the inference that being black means not being able to do it; you’re a broken toy.
The hidden history is that blacks did better before AA and the welfare state moved in to bail them out. The Democratic Party’s origins in the eugenics and racist movements in America cloud their “help”. Liberal whites don’t believe in black people and they never have.
My friend is an 85 year old architect, now retired. He owns an airplane and has had one since the 70s. He owns several apartment buildings, all paid free and clear. He owns a beautiful vacation home on Hilton Head Island.
His plans and drawings always pass. He knows more than entire building and zoning departments. I’ve never known him to be wrong in a dispute. They end with the bureaucrat apologizing, often in writing. He’s also black.
He never got AA or any breaks. As a matter of fact he grew up in racist Chicago and earned his way up by gumption, grit and hard work. That’s the only way.
I don't believe in coincidence. I'd love to see a donor list in the years around Obama’s attendance.
I personally believe exactly that, but am always hesitant to express such views and be accused of having foil on my head or something.
It’s not likely that the affirmative action regime will be repealed in any serious way. Right now it depends on the weakest of the five conservative justices to vote with the conservative wing and not cower in the face of the media opprobrium that will be unleased on him. If any of the five dies or retires before 2017, Obama will replace him with a hard-line leftist. If a Democrat wins in 2016, it’s almost inevitable that there will be a leftist majority on the court by 2020.
We went to the same place.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.