• Welcome to OGBoards 10.0, keep in mind that we will be making LOTS of changes to smooth out the experience here and make it as close as possible functionally to the old software, but feel free to drop suggestions or requests in the Tech Support subforum!

Group contemplating challenge to UNC Affirmative Action

I just read the majority opinion of the SCOTUS case. Interesting read. It's mostly about there being no authority for the judiciary to set aside state laws that commit the the policy determination of race to the voters. The case doesn't really address racial preferences or affirmative action at all other than saying constitutional amendment is a valid means of resolving a policy question as long as it doesn't prevent the state from taking action to remedy relatively discrete equal protection violations
 
jhmd2000 said:
Yeah, but what do six justices on the Supreme Court know about the Constitution? Do 58% of the electorate of a blue State really know what's best for them? What if you hosted a government racial discrimination party and nobody showed up?
Click to expand...

Lol, a hell of a lot more than you do obviously. This case had nothing to do with the constitutionality of affirmative action. It was about a state's ability to ban affirmative action. Saying that a state MAY ban affirmative action does not preclude another state from using Affirmative Action. Hopefully you understand the difference.
 
jhmd2000 said:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/21/u...poverty-hardship-hits-back.html?smid=fb-share

Of the 353 most persistently poor counties in the United States — defined by Washington as having had a poverty rate above 20 percent in each of the past three decades — 85 percent are rural. They are clustered in distinct regions: Indian reservations in the West; Hispanic communities in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas; a band across the Deep South and along the Mississippi Delta with a majority black population; and Appalachia, largely white, which has supplied some of America’s iconic imagery of rural poverty since the Depression-era photos of Walker Evans.

As a refresher to a much-evaded point, most of the Nation's poor are not just not helped by racial preferences, but it actively works against them. Not the sign of a well-reasoned policy, in my view.
Click to expand...

85% of farmers in the U.S. live in the midwest. Most of the Nation's farmers are not just not helped by racial preferences, but it actively works against them. Not the sign of a well-reasoned policy, in my view.



Oh what's that you say? Affirmative Action isn't designed to help farmers or poor people but is designed to remedy something else entirely? Interesting. But did I mention poor white people and single mothers?
 
But what about the Asians?
 
Wakeforest22890 said:
I just read the majority opinion of the SCOTUS case. Interesting read. It's mostly about there being no authority for the judiciary to set aside state laws that commit the the policy determination of race to the voters. The case doesn't really address racial preferences or affirmative action at all other than saying constitutional amendment is a valid means of resolving a policy question as long as it doesn't prevent the state from taking action to remedy relatively discrete equal protection violations
Click to expand...

California voters also banned AA by constitutional amendment (Prop 209) in 1996. Prop 209 has been challenged several times and never taken up by the Supreme Court. Is there something special/different about the amendment process in MI as opposed to CA that caused the Supreme Court to take up the issue now after not having addressed it earlier with Prop 209?
 
FuckmouthedRube said:
California voters also banned AA by constitutional amendment (Prop 209) in 1996. Prop 209 has been challenged several times and never taken up by the Supreme Court. Is there something special/different about the amendment process in MI as opposed to CA that caused the Supreme Court to take up the issue now after not having addressed it earlier with Prop 209?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure. Maybe they wanted to revisit the underlying issue first with the Fisher case? As far as I know the Michigan prop was modeled after California's.
 
FuckmouthedRube said:
California voters also banned AA by constitutional amendment (Prop 209) in 1996. Prop 209 has been challenged several times and never taken up by the Supreme Court. Is there something special/different about the amendment process in MI as opposed to CA that caused the Supreme Court to take up the issue now after not having addressed it earlier with Prop 209?
Click to expand...

The Sixth Circuit struck down the amendment I believe. If the California amendment has been challenged but upheld in the 9th Circuit it could have been as simple as wanting to resolve a circuit split.
 
Wakeforest22890 said:
I just read the majority opinion of the SCOTUS case. Interesting read. It's mostly about there being no authority for the judiciary to set aside state laws that commit the the policy determination of race to the voters. The case doesn't really address racial preferences or affirmative action at all other than saying constitutional amendment is a valid means of resolving a policy question as long as it doesn't prevent the state from taking action to remedy relatively discrete equal protection violations
Click to expand...

I haven't read the dissent yet, but this doesn't seem to me like it should be a particularly controversial decision. The syllabus summary of Breyer's concurrence was pretty much exactly what I was thinking when I read Billy Mitchell's one sentence description of the issue in the case. Obviously there's enough controversy for it to have gotten to the Supreme Court and have 2 justices dissenting, so I guess my gut reaction wasn't exactly on point.
 
Wakeforest22890 said:
I just read the majority opinion of the SCOTUS case. Interesting read. It's mostly about there being no authority for the judiciary to set aside state laws that commit the the policy determination of race to the voters. The case doesn't really address racial preferences or affirmative action at all other than saying constitutional amendment is a valid means of resolving a policy question as long as it doesn't prevent the state from taking action to remedy relatively discrete equal protection violations
Click to expand...

If that position had been in place in the 50s and 60s, segregation would still be allowed in many states. If it's about the "rights of the states" to legislate against AA, then we are taking a huge step back. We've seen over two dozen states start their Jim Crow, Jr. with their classist, ageist, racist voter suppression laws. The next will be to exclude people of color and women from jobs, contracts and college.

All the SC did was end AA for minorities and women. They didn't end AA for incompetent, less qualified white people. Women will be especially hard hit. White men will get seats more qualified women deserve. If you have daughters, sisters or nieces, yesterday was a very dark day for them.

This SC is turning back decades of progress again.
 
RJKarl said:
If that position had been in place in the 50s and 60s, segregation would still be allowed in many states. If it's about the "rights of the states" to legislate against AA, then we are taking a huge step back. We've seen over two dozen states start their Jim Crow, Jr. with their classist, ageist, racist voter suppression laws. The next will be to exclude people of color and women from jobs, contracts and college.

All the SC did was end AA for minorities and women. They didn't end AA for incompetent, less qualified white people. Women will be especially hard hit. White men will get seats more qualified women deserve. If you have daughters, sisters or nieces, yesterday was a very dark day for them.

This SC is turning back decades of progress again.
Click to expand...

This isn't really true at all. States aren't allowed to pass amendments which violate the 14th amendment. Not to mention California was one of the first states to pass the no affirmative action portion. The courts opinion actually does a really good job distinguishing between prior cases where the SCOTUS has said states cannot pass laws or amendments regarding race or skin color and this case.

To me this case isn't really about race at all as it's about political process. The reason race comes in is because it's a protected class under the 14th amendment so the underlying question isn't "can states pass racially discriminatory legislation or amedments" as much as it is "can a state remove the option to attempt a strict scrutiny test by its public universities in considering applicants."

While this impacts a state's stance on race to some degree it strikes me more as a state choosing not to do something it has no requirement to do in the first place. It's about the relationship between the states and the federal government not about being racist or not.

It would b totally different if the constitution required affirmative action and then this was passed.

Here it's: "the SCOTUS has said you can use 'x' criteria to pick applicants but only if it passes strict scrutiny." And the state voted to have it be a constitutional amendment to not use x even though you can do so under the federal constitution if you so choose
 
Any amendment that comes close to "excluding people of color and women from jobs contracts and college" would immediately be struck down as unconstitutional. The case law says as such and this case states it.

Actually the opinion is well worth a read b
 
Wakeforest22890 said:
Any amendment that comes close to "excluding people of color and women from jobs contracts and college" would immediately be struck down as unconstitutional. The case law says as such and this case states it.

Actually the opinion is well worth a read b
Click to expand...

That's true of legislation (and almost any state action) as well and not just amendments, of course. The question worth our time is, what is the exact reasoning and basis?
 
The amendment effectively keeps minorities and women from getting a fair shake. There will be more like it. These laws harm tens of millions of Americans. Their purpose is to incrementally recreate segregation and perpetuate the financial and political superiority of white males.

If you think otherwise, you are either hopelessly naive or willfully blind.
 
RJKarl said:
The amendment effectively keeps minorities and women from getting a fair shake. There will be more like it. These laws harm tens of millions of Americans. Their purpose is to incrementally recreate segregation and perpetuate the financial and political superiority of white males.

If you think otherwise, you are either hopelessly naive or willfully blind.
Click to expand...

Why do I have to choose?
 
RJKarl said:
The amendment effectively keeps minorities and women from getting a fair shake. There will be more like it. These laws harm tens of millions of Americans. Their purpose is to incrementally recreate segregation and perpetuate the financial and political superiority of white males.

If you think otherwise, you are either hopelessly naive or willfully blind.
Click to expand...

Well as far as I know you need invidious intent and not just disparate impact to prevail on EPC issues. Gonna be tough to show invidious intent unless you can get a Kennedy type view from the Romer case (no reason other than discrimination could explain it) which seems unlikely since Kennedy wrote the opinion here

Theoretically I agree with the European model that disparate impact is enough but practically speaking it won't be the law here for a long time.
 
And I actually do agree with you RJ and it's what the dissent gets into - it's just not the state of the law
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top