Local appeals court upholds Michigan Law's race-based admissions policies. Supreme Court's next?

CNN.com ^ | May 14th, 2002 | NationalDebtGrows

[usadave]

Ah, but in this new "politically correct" age, we have to be more "diverse," eh?

I want to see more diversity in college and professional basketball.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Interesting misuse of a Senate self-appointed COMMITTEE chairman to overrule the constitutional duty of a President to appoint judges.

But, then again, is there ANY honest national democrat party member?

[VA Advogado]

Interesting misuse of a Senate self-appointed COMMITTEE chairman to overrule the constitutional duty of a President to appoint judges.

I think he should make them all recess appointments. By the time they come up for reappointment in a year, hopefully we'll have the Senate.

[VA Advogado]

But, then again, is there ANY honest national democrat party member?

I think Jim Trafficant is as good as it gets. :)

[Chad Brick]

I am a grad student at the University of Michigan. It's kind of fun to be at the eye of the storm. This decision is Constitutional BS, plain and simple. When one argues "compelling government interest", one has already conceded that a right is being violated. In this case, both because the right involved is a Constitutional one (equal protection) and because a "suspect classification" (ie, race) is involved, the University's admission policy must meet the strictest of legal criteria. Basically these are that the University's policy is addressing a compelling interest, and that there is no less intrusive steps that can be taken to address the concern. Affirmative action fails on both counts. I would argue that AA doesn't even amount to an interest at all - it makes the University worse! One could disagree with me, arguing that the benefits outweigh the costs, but I highly doubt that one could argue that the net difference is COMPELLING. A compelling government interest is something akin to preventing a nuclear bomb from going off in a major city, not sorta-maybe-kinda improving education a wee bit, at best. A compelling interest is something so obvious that few rational people would disagree of its worth. Yet many feel that AA is a negative, so it makes no sense to call it compellingly positive. The second criteria is also failed by AA. There are plenty of non-racist, constitutional ways to address the many problems our educational system faces. I will not list them all here but there are many, many ideas out there, some of which have been shown to work. Overall, this decision is BS, and hurts the University. Despite its howling about it, the school faces a massive LACK of diversity where it counts - in the mind, rather than the skin. Political agendas are rammed down the undergraduates throats from day one, conservative groups receive far less funding from the student government, the few conservative speakers who dare to speak out are harrassed and heckled, etc. Worse yet, it is obvious to just about everyone that far too many of the "under-represented" minority students at the school just aren't up to snuff. Not only does this get in the way of the education of everyone else, but it also is fertile breeding ground for negative generalizations about these groups. AA also creates hostility and divides us. It is an overwhelming NEGATIVE in my opinion, and is as far from "compelling" as I can imagine.

[VA Advogado]

And CARL LEVIN is the key jerk to blame...and he's running for re-election.

How can such a flaming liberal be chair of the armed services committee?

[Dan from Michigan]

Seniority. This guy has been in office since I was in dipers(sp).

I never voted for him.

[NationalDebtGrows]

Would you like to see how both CNN and OUR TAX DOLLARS are hard at work in deceptively making Americans (etcetera) believe that such remedial measures for African Americans are highly justified? Our tax dollars divisively promoting affirmative action

[chimera]

There's no reason to believe that one brings a diversity of opinion solely by virtue of one's skin color, is there?

Good point. More the opposite is true. While political opinion in the black community is not completely monolithic, it is safe to say, based on polling done in election years, that the majority of blacks tend to support Rat/liberal candidates. Certainly no one can accuse a school like U.M. of being a bastion of conservatism. More the opposite is true. Thus, in this case, "diversity", which is really a proxy for quota-based affirmative action (everyone knows this is true, so why not just be truthful and state it as such), exacerbates an already out-of-balance condition re "diversity". If the Court would only see things as they are and not as they think they are or would like them to be, they would see this is true, and should uphold the lower court's ruling as to the unconstitutionality of the university's policy. "Diversity" as practiced at U.M. and elsewhere in academia would be best served by eliminating race-based quota schemes cloaked by the "diversity" smokescreen.

In any case, I do not see anything in the Constitution noting anything about "diversity". Is that word even used anywhere? Unless the SC goes into another frenzy of legal thrashing about, looking for "emanations" from an imagined "penumbra" of a defined right, I can't imagine them twisting this one in such a manner. Then again, given the damage done to the courts over the eight long, dreary years of President Slimemold, anything's possible. I'll bet Ginsburg and Bryer are just salivating over the prospect of making this another landmark social engineering case.

[Marysecretary]

If we ever will...

[mysonsfuture]

THIS DECISION IS AN OUTRAGE!!! READ THE DISSENT!! IN AN APPARRENTLY UNPRECEDENTED MOVE, THE DISSENT OULINES PROCEDURAL IRREGULARITIES BY THE MAJORITY! THE MAJORITY REFUSED TO HEAR THE CASE UNTIL 2 CONSERVATIVE JUSTICES RETIRED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Holden Magroin]

If the University of Michigan is going to discriminate against blue-collar white kids so that it can achieve a racially balanced student body, then it sure as hell had better discriminate against blacks so that it can achieve a racially balanced basketball team.

For these liberals to lecture white teenagers on the importance of racially diversity is hypocritical enough to make the Pope curse. The Ivory Tower is one of these least racially diverse work environments there is. But I wonder how many of those bleeding-heart liberals would put their heads on the chopping block in order to clear the deck for a few black or Hispanic professors.

Of course there is no compelling state interest in achieving a racially diverse student body. If racial diversity were the yardstick by which we should judge all universities, then the lily-white Harvard University of 50 years ago would've been considered a poor university.

In my entire time in college, the only thing I learned from being around blacks and Hispanics was that most of them are a bunch of crybabies who scapegoat whites (and now Jews) for their own shortcomings. In reality, diversity is just one in an endless series of excuses to justify putting lazy minority students on the fast track to a college degree and teaching white students a lesson for the moral failings of their ancestors.

Enough is enough! Giving special rights to people because of their race is unfair, unjust, and un-American. If Bush would simply call for an end to this racial spoils system, he could carry every state in the Union in 2004 - without having to prostitute himself to blacks and Hispanics. Yet that wimp has instead pushed for amnesty for illegal aliens and defended contract set-asides before the Supreme Court. As a result, white kids continue to be sacrificed on the altar of diversity.

[NationalDebtGrows]

I'm impressed with much of what I've seen posted in this thread. I'd like to add the following statistic that I just came across in the Washington Times:

"About 47 percent of black households could be considered middle income in the year 2000, according to an analysis of census data by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a think tank focusing on black issues. By contrast, about 64 percent of white households were middle income." (source: http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020516-25223272.htm).

Are blacks still so far "behind" whites that the racial spoils system should continue? If anything should continue, it's welfare reform which encourages them to stay married and have fewer children. It also encourages them to take school more seriously, instead of thinking that excuses which worked in the past (at the threat of burning down Los Angeles or Washington D.C. if they didn't) can still work now in the 21st Century, centurieS AFTER slavery ended among the **fewer than 10%*** of Southern Whites that even had slaves.

ONE NATION, ONE WORK ETHIC.

[NationalDebtGrows]

"Are Reparations for Slavery Really Due?