Split Decision, Clear Result (the Michigan SC cases)

United Press International ^ | 23 June 2003 | John Armor

[Lancey Howard]

You know what the real irony is?
Anybody who wants a good lawyer will look for a white male lawyer because it will be understood that the white male lawyer had a more difficult path to getting his degree. And just like it will be natural to presume that a black lawyer can't be any good (coddled all the way through, etc.) it will conversely be presumed that a white male lawyer MUST be good. This will result in a greater demand for white lawyers.

So naturally, government will have to step in and tell people who they must hire when they want a lawyer.

Some of these dottering old fools on the Supreme Court have to start retiring. Soon.

[Lancey Howard]

You have to understand that silly women like O'Connor just.... "feel".... that racial diversity at law school is important enough to suspend the Constitution for. She is senile.

[htjyang]

1. The bad news is that the Constitution is whatever 5 people in black robes say it is.

But the good news is also that the Constitution is whatever 5 people in black robes say it is. If the Court's membership changes in the right direction soon, race preferences won't have 25 years. Let's hope President Bush will appoint the right people.

2. I heard that Alberto Gonzalez was the one who watered down the Administration's brief. With this outcome, there's no chance he'll be considered. (That is, unless one of the libs retires.)

3. The current president does bear some responsibility. He's the one who appointed Gonzalez to the position of White House counsel giving him a position to influence the Administration's brief, which would have been stronger if the Solicitor General Theodore Olson had his way.

The SG is also known as the Tenth Justice precisely because of his influence with the Court. There's the possibility that had the brief been stronger, we would've gotten rid of this nonsense. (Admittedly a slim possibility, but it existed. And, after all, it was a 5-4.)

More despicable, however, is the way the Administration celebrated the ruling. Jeb Bush put out a much better statement.

Did he really have to come out and say everything has gone merrily?

[drhogan]

i think you hit on something important here. "compelling government interest" seems to mean some phony excuse they use to override the constitution when that document says something that is inconvenient.

[bybybill]

It rained in Oregon yesterday. Is that Bush`s fault, too? I heard (from who?) that one of Bush`s advisors prayed for rain. Obviously, GWB dropped the ball when he appointed people that sometimes pray for rain. To make matters worse, Bush said that sometimes rain can be a good thing.

[PeoplesRepublicOfWashington]

Is it accurate to regard the law school decision as a decision in equity rather than in law? I find decisions in equity to be horrendously frightening. They trump the law on a whim and make it impossible to predict the law, thus destablizing society and providing judges with an avenue to legislate. Would not society be better off if we abolished equity?

[A2J]

RE: #10

What the Court effectively did was take the easy way out while attempting to throw conservatives a bone by rejecting the undergraduate case.

This Court has shown itself to be both politically correct and yet morally bankrupt at the same time. It's time for Sandra to go and I say, "Good riddance!"

[garbanzo]

Notice how the admission in law school is purely at the mercy of the school bureaucracy

Since when wasn't it? Do you suggest we put law school admissions up for public vote?

[Steve Eisenberg]

Ok. Please define 'America's side'.

Phrase withdrawn. It's just that I would rather live under O'Connor's misinterpreted US Constitution than under Ginsberg's "International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination." Also to be noted is that the International Convention, as quoted by Ginsberg/Bryer, seems not just to allow the state of Michigan to take "special and concrete" reverse discriminatory measures, but to require it. Thus if we had an almost-all Democratic court, states like Florida which do NOT discriminate would be the ones in the dock. So it is still worthwhile to have GOP judges even if some of them bend to elitist opinion as yesterday.

[Steve Eisenberg]

"compelling government interest" seems to mean some phony excuse they use to override the constitution when that document says something that is inconvenient.

Agreed. Thomas said that there couldn't be a compelling government interest to discriminate in law school admissions because there is no compelling government interest in having a government-run law school in the first place.

[Steve Eisenberg]

Notice how the admission in law school is purely at the mercy of the school bureaucracy

Since when wasn't it? Do you suggest we put law school admissions up for public vote?

I suggest that if the state is going to run a law school, the legislature should dictate objective admissions criteria only, such as tests scores and grade point average. If the bureaucrats want, they can keep statistics on the law school grades received by admittees from different undergraduate schools and discount each school's GPA's accordingly. However, if you go beyond that to allow soft criteria such as how the applicant did on an interview, they are going to shy away from conservative applicants. Kennedy alludes to the disdain for GOP applicants in his otherwise weak dissent.

[lentulusgracchus]

It rained in Oregon yesterday. Is that Bush`s fault, too?

Yes, if the guy he picked to brief against identity-political admissions policies dropped the ball and didn't get it done.

And it's his fault if he's busily kissing up to identity-politics-consuming minorities behind the scenes so that losing becomes a "win".

I won't let him have it both ways. Sounds like you'd like to let him have it all ways, though. How's your Kool-Aid?

[Fury]

Very interesting post. Especially consider:

"Race can be identified – thus, race is quantifiable (a core concept in the “one drop principle” of the racist). There is no scientific basis for this idea. Race, unlike species, is a continuum."

Taking this to perhaps the reasonable next step, what is to prevent a law school candidate who "appears" white to notate on their application that they are "African-American"? Who is the wiser?

I'd be curious to know if the University of Michigan would then attempt to validate the "minorityness" of a law school applicant. What criteria would they use - the color of a person's skin?

[garbanzo]

I suggest that if the state is going to run a law school, the legislature should dictate objective admissions criteria only, such as tests scores and grade point average.

The problem with that is that even the makers of standardized tests don't recommend overemphasizing the test scores and as you allude to, GPAs from different schools are directly compatible.

[Congressman Billybob]

No, it was not "sloppy writing" on my part. Supreme Court cases prior to this one have ruled that special remedies like this MUST have a deadline to close out. In order to rely on those cases, Justice O'Connor was required to apply a sunset term to this remedy at Michigan Law School.

She gritted her teeth. She was ambiguous in her language. But that does not change the prior cases. A deadline must be there, and 25 years is the maximum deadline ever used. Those prior cases appear at the end of her Opinion in the Grutter case.

I thoroughly agree that this position makes no logical sense. It's saying, "This is unconstitutional, but not yet." It's like a jury in a criminal case coming in with the vrdict, "Not guilty, but don't do it again." But, as I said, it adds up to the end of affirmative action.

Billybob

[Congressman Billybob]

I'm glad, and not surprised, that Major Garrett first mentioned the 25-year sunset provision. I was deep into finding an alternative source for the opinions when he was on the air. (The official Supreme Court website was blocked by massive hits. I found the opinions at two separate university websites.)

That's why I qualified my comment as those I had "read or seen." It is telling that the New York Times did not see fit to mention the 25-year deadline. Neither did most other news sources. Only Fox got that part of the story in print or on air.

Billybob

[hobbes1]

I hate to be the one to point this out, but.....This is the way it has to be.


Everyone wants to see the glass as half empty, but it is not.

UM had been using a darn Point System, so that members of a favored subgroup, were awarded more based on melatonin,
than they could get by a perfect SAT score.

This is now Clearly illegal. That is a victory for right.


Now on to the Law School.Keeping in mind, that we already have 50% of the battle in this case won.

OConnor, long known as a swing vote on social issues sticks to her known tendencies, provided the swing to allow race to
be considered, as part of a lesser consideration.


this is still not a colorblind society, but....

As it is pointed out, her own writing expresses the fact that this is a dying light..... that is in and of itself, half a victory in half the
case...


at the end of the day, The principles of Right walked away with 75% ......And gave the left nothing to campaign on....a side
bonus...

this is more of a victory than people are willing to admit.


In terms of thinking long, more people need to study the way the Chinese think...instead of letting their intellect be driven by this
pseudo-madisonavenue-fastfoodculture style of thinking....

[Fury]

So, what about shade? Are blacks with very light skin accorded the same preferrential bonus as blacks with very dark skin? Or what about a person who is half Asian, half black - - do they cancel each other out?

That's what I considered. The "minorityness" of a certain applicant - how do you determine? It turns into a subjective mess. What happens if a "white" comes in and says "I'm 1/4 'black'". How many points does he/she get? How do they prove the person is really 1/4 "black"?

[TLBSHOW]

I can only hope that aa is dead before 25 years

,,,,

Don't count on it, Bush had a chance and blew it. Because he supports AA fully.

[hchutch]

Is it perfect? No. But it is good enough. In 25 years - using the worst-case scenarios, racial discrimination will end once and for all. Is it as soon as I would like? No, but I'll take it anyhow.

Sergey Gorshkov once said, "Perfect is the enemy of good enough."

I'll take good enough.