Split Decision, Clear Result (the Michigan SC cases)

United Press International ^ | 23 June 2003 | John Armor

[hchutch]

Perfect is the enemy of good enough. But I guess crybabies like you can't see the truth...

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

Hispanic is not a race. A Cuban such as Desi Arnez is 100% white of Spanish decent. Fidel is white. Many of the elite Mexican's are white, Fox is white. Many of the South American countries have a signicant number of people that are of French decent but speak Spanish. I think that a good case can be made if someone complains about a white Hispanic getting preferance at one of these schools.

[TLBSHOW]

more like spinners like you that don't see the truth...

,,,,

A White House statement unpersuasively spun yesterday's decision as a victory.

But in one sense it is the first Supreme Court decision issued by White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, who is widely believed to be President Bush's choice for the High Court when the next Justice retires.

Mr. Gonzales helped to overrule those at the Justice Department who understood how Justice O'Connor would interpret their brief's legal ambivalence.

The one silver lining in yesterday's Grutter opinion is Justice O'Connor's own lack of confidence in it.

She admits that race-based policies are so constitutionally suspect that they must be "time-limited" and predicts that they will be gone at Michigan in 25 years.


Alas, that is probably also what Justice Powell thought when he wrote Bakke, precisely 25 years ago.


http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/934407/posts?page=

[Poodlebrain]

If diversity can be a compelling state interest why can't conformity or uniformity be a compelling state interest? I'm just wondering.

[dsc]

"Scalia is so smart..."

If there ever could be an argument for cloning...

[mtbopfuyn]

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?

Exactly. 100% black is a rarity in America. Archeologists tell us we all came from Mother Africa, if so then we're ALL African, right? If we're ALL African then shouldn't it stand there be no AA? Oh, I know the AA initially meant perks for "people of color" (purple, green?) from the underprivileged American black ghetto experience but that hasn't held water for years. Sandra, AA should have been pronounced dead 25 years AGO. We've successfully dumbed down public schools to the lowest common denominator and as of Monday our universities have suffered the same fate. Admittance should be based solely on the student's will to succeed not on the happenstance of whom his great great great great great grandparent chose to sleep with one night.

[dsc]

"If diversity can be a compelling state interest why can't conformity or uniformity be a compelling state interest?"

Blasphemy!! Blasphemy!!

Bow down, heathen, and beg forgiveness. Bow down before the golden calf, diversity!!

[CurlyDave]

If you give a group of university professors who want to discriminate against whites the slightest opportunity they will. And they will have the intelligence to dream up all sorts of ways to discriminate that will appear to be "fairer" or "less biased" than the old, forbidden way. Buit, they will always manage to achieve the same result as the old way. They will just have to jump through more hoops to do it.

Justice O'Connor's Opinion states that it should remain in effect only for "twenty-five years." Even by its own terms, this decision is deliberately temporary.

I don't think that the current court can mandate the action of a future court.

Plus this is a huge defeat for conservatives. It appears to me to that the court has here decided the "living constitution" vs. "strict constructionist" debate clearly in favor of the "living constitution". Even worse, not only has the court said that the constitution is living and changing right before our eyes, but that we know exactly how it is going to change.

Right now the constitution says one thing, twenty five years from now it is going to say an entirely different thing. And, we can tell you exactly what it is going to say in twenty five years.

[lepton]

May be 7 for imperfect score + 5 bonus? In any case this does not make a bit of difference. 20 points are enough for the dumberer to get on top of anybody.

The main reason for the point was that it was posted on UPI. Details like that can get people to spuriously discredit you.

[singsong]

>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?
Nah, You'r not getting it. Admission was based on test results and school grades.There were rules for calculating total score ranking etc. There was an audit-able trial of evidence and if rules were broken one could sue. That puts a check on favoritism. As it stands now, there are no rules. Actually there is one. From the mouth of a Michigan University bureaucrat it sounds like this "The rule is ME". Some super fuzzy "life experience assessment" can be understood and performed only and only by the bureaucrat. It's final and one has to take it... whole.

[iconoclast]

The bottom line for all these complainers is that they apparently expect President Bush to DO something. What they expect him to do, I haven't figured out yet.

Not surprising.

Ummmm ... how about just letting Ted Olson have his way?

[Miss Marple]

I have a question about this Ted Olson story. The only source for that was Robert Novak, who is not always friendly to the administration. Is there another source for this story?

[iconoclast]

The only source for that was Robert Novak, who is not always friendly to the administration. Is there another source for this story?

Your cheesy attempt to impugn the integrity of Bob Novak, the dean of conservative journalists, says way more about you than about Mr. Novak.

[iconoclast]

the bottom line conclusion of these two cases is clear – affirmative action is dead in American universities in no more than 25 years.

Are you unfamiliar with the sarcasm tag? Surely you can't be serious.

This is just one more example of "compassionate conservatism". May God grant you a twenty-five year toothache!

[iconoclast]

Is there another source for this story?

Is this close enough?

The court's offering of mush might have been avoided if the Bush administration had made a strong, principled argument instead of offering a weak and tepid defense of the constitutional notion that all Americans are held to be equal in the sight of the law, a notion often honored in the breach in years past. A president never looks good riding sidesaddle, as the master of Prairie Chapel Ranch could have told him.

This is just part of the reaction of that other "left-wing" journalist, Wes Pruden.

[Miss Marple]

That isn't a cheesy attempt; it is a flat-out fact that he doesn't always cast a friendly eye to this administration, which you would realistically admit if you read Novak every week, which I do. It has nothing to do with his integrity. There are people with integrity that oppose this administration on some issues.

The question remains, is there another source for this story, or did someone give Novak an "exclusive?" On occasion Novak's sources have been wrong and he has taken a story without verification, maybe because he trusts the source, maybe because occasionally he wants to believe it.

I just find it odd that this appeared in one Novak column and as far as I know no other stories appeared except for a few quoting Novak. Perhaps it is correct, perhaps not. Asking for another source is NOT impugning someone's integrity.

[Miss Marple]

So where did Pruden get the information? Stating it as a fact is no different than people here who say it is a fact.

I don't know if this is an accurate portrayal of what happened or not. I just want to know if someone also reported it when Novak did without quoting Novak.

[Miss Marple]

Let me clarify my last remark. Pruden is alking about the argument itself. There are plenty of people who didn't like the brief.

What I want to know is where Novak got his information that the brief was stronger and had been watered down, and if anyone else reported this besides Novak.

[kabar]

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?

Good point. We will need race verification boards ala the Nazis who required people to provide their family trees to prove they weren't Jewish. With intermarriage and mixing of the races, I can see the growing absurdity of trying to class people according to race. We will probably adopt the same system they used in South Africa.

[Teacher317]

25 year moratorium on having to apply the Constitution to anything

SCOTUS and Congress have gutlessly avoided most major decisions for the past few decades. The borders, the Second Amendment, limited federal powers (the 9th and 10th Amendments), etc. It is unconscionable.