Supreme Court casts doubt on affirmative action

[struggle4progress]

Richard Wolf
Mary Beth Marklein
8:15PM EST October 10. 2012

WASHINGTON — The use of racial preferences in university admissions appears to be in jeopardy -- at least at the University of Texas, if not nationwide.

With the author of the last landmark affirmative action case, retired justice Sandra Day O'Connor, seated in the front row, the Supreme Court openly struggled Wednesday with this central question: How much racial favoritism is enough? ...

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito expressed skepticism with Texas' effort to achieve diversity even in small classrooms, where Gregory Garre, the university's lawyer, said minority students feel "shocking isolation." ...

The lawyers seemed particularly focused on Justice Anthony Kennedy, who dissented from O'Connor's 2003 opinion in Grutter v. Bollinger, the University of Michigan case that upheld a limited use of racial preferences. That case remains the law of the land, but Kennedy and the other four conservative justices, including Clarence Thomas, could overrule it in this case ...

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/10/10/supreme-court-affirmative-action-race/1624263/

[hrmjustin]

1. What about legacy admissions? will that be gotten rid of.

[Speck Tater]

2. Didn't we already settle this? What's next, reconsidering slavery? nt

[former-republican]

3. Do universities use racial preference or racial quotas for acceptance ?

I thought that was illegal.

I have never read about the case you linked.

[bluestate10]

4. Universities use a variety of set asides to select students

If a university has too many Black students, it can reject more applicants. If a university has too few Black students, it can set aside spaces to take more. Universities set aside seats for children of college professors, children of distinguished alumni, children of big donors. As a graduate of the university that I got my degree from and as a financial contributor to it, any child that I have would have an advantage on getting accepted as long as the child was prepared for college.

[bluestate10]

5. BTW. Many top colleges are rejecting Asian National Merit scholars

because the percentage of such students is high. The colleges are accepting Caucasian and other students that didn't perform as well academically and on entrance exams. Exclusion of some groups by colleges and universities has been a practice that has run since colleges started.

[Savannahmann]

6. That was a point that I made to a friend in the 80's.

He said that merit should govern admissions. I said if that was true, than UCLA (the subject school of our discussion) would be roughly speaking about 90% Asian-American, and the rest would be not you. He didn't know how to respond to that.

[former-republican]

7. didn't know that

I learn something new everyday here.

[Nye Bevan]

8. Good. Let's ban discrimination based upon melanin concentration (nt)

[Zoeisright]

9. Affirmative action until the end of fucking TIME will never be enough.

God, these fucking asshole old white men. When are they going to die off?