Posted on 12/09/2015 7:07:43 PM PST by jazusamo
Supreme Court justices found themselves enmeshed in the thorny issue of affirmative action once again Wednesday, hearing a University of Texas case that could determine whether any race-based school admissions plans can pass muster under the court's evolving jurisprudence.
For several decades, the court has flirted with the upper boundaries of affirmative action, but a majority has always shied away from delivering a final blow to racial preferences. The case heard Wednesday doesn't directly challenge preferences, but it does give justices an opportunity to make them all but unworkable.
Affirmative action supporters walked away from the case fearing that was the direction a five-justice majority would go after tough questioning from Republican-appointed members.
In one exchange, Justice Antonin Scalia questioned whether it was even appropriate to work so hard to recruit black students into top-tier schools for which they may not be prepared.
"I don't think it stands to reason that it's a good thing for the University of Texas to admit as many blacks as possible," he said.
Gregory G. Garre, an attorney for the university, rejected that argument out of hand. He said it would be tantamount to separate and unequal schooling opportunities for minorities.
The justices first have to decide whether the case is ready for a decision. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, frequently the swing vote when major social issues reach the high court, wondered whether the university had done enough research to justify its program.
It was the second time the case -- a challenge raised by Abigail Fisher, a white student who was denied admission in 2008 and blamed her race as a factor -- has reached the court. A 2013 decision written by Justice Kennedy sent the matter back to lower courts with instructions for how to approach it.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Hook’em Horns. Stop this racism!!
I wonder, if right now, sitting at this bar, I can word for word pre-write the wise latinas opinion, or if being drunk will cause me to miss a word or two
Oh goodie. We get to wring our hands again waiting to find out what new twisted interpretation of the Constitution happens to please Justice Kennedy.
"Affirmative action hangs in balance as Supreme Court hears U. of Texas case"
FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponents Argument
It would not surprise me if post-FDR era, 10th Amendment (10A)-ignoring, institutionally indoctrinated justices could not find their way out of a paper bag.
Patriots, please note that the only race-based personal protection that the states have ever amended the Constitution to expressly protect is voting rights as evidenced by the 15th Amendment.
In other words, the states would need to amend the Constitution to likewise protect race specifically in the context of INTRAstate educational issues before the feds could constitutionally get involved in such issues. Such an amendment would give the corrupt Court an education-related racial protection to throw at the states via the 14th Amendment. (Note that the lack of a specific constitutional protection is the same basic reason why the Court did not get involved in the Terry Schiavo 10A-protected state euthanasia issue imo.)
In the meanwhile, the states uniquely have the 10A-protected power to decide how to run their own intrastate schools until such a time when the states should suffer temporary insanity and amend the Constitution to give the feds the power to stick their big noses into intrastate educational issues.
In fact, note that Thomas Jefferson had promoted the idea of the states amending the Constitution to regulate, tax and spend for intrastate schooling purposes, indirectly indicating that the states have never done so.
”The great mass of the articles on which impost is paid is foreign luxuries, purchased by those only who are rich enough to afford themselves the use of them. Their patriotism would certainly prefer its continuance and application to the great purposes of the public education, roads, rivers, canals, and such other objects of public improvement as it may be thought proper to add to the constitutional enumeration of federal powers [emphasis added].” Thomas Jefferson: 6th Annual Message, 1806.
The bottom line is that activist justices are probably creating confusion to unconstitutionally expand the Courts powers imo.
AA wouldn’t be an issue if gov’t funding of all colleges and universities, except community colleges, was stopped. Let all those colleges and universities with selective admissions be private (with no gov’t subsidies), and then those schools can recruit whomever they like. Meanwhile, everyone else can take the community college route, where everyone is accepted.
Looking further into this case...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher_v._University_of_Texas
This student’s SAT score was average. And she didn’t quite reach the top 10% of her class, so she wasn’t guaranteed admission to UT.
So she tried for admission under a process that would evaluate her “talents, leadership qualities, family circumstances, and race” (as per Wikipedia). Apparently she has no problem with “family circumstances” helping her in admission; she’s ticked-off because “race” is considered.
She seems to believe she was entitled to admission because her SAT score falls within UT’s range. When she didn’t get in, she went to another university, so what’s the big deal?
My eldest son’s SAT score fell within the range of an Ivy League university. He applied to one. When he wasn’t accepted, he applied to state schools that offered him big scholarships. He didn’t sue the Ivy League school.
Affirmative action is clearly illegal based on the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Any other interpretation by the Supreme Court is judicial tyranny and activism.
Affirmative Action is state-sponsored economic terrorism against the competent producers of society.
The elites know full well the outcome of their sick agenda: to marginalize and ultimately disenfranchise white people from the levers of power in this country.
This student wasn’t disenfranchised at all. She went to another university and graduated from that one.
Agreed that race should be dropped as a factor in admissions - but only if other factors (like “family circumstances” and “out-of-state residency”) are dropped, too. Let’s go purely with grades and scores.
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