Thread: Affirmative Action

Decade of race-blind policy at UCalif.
By MICHELLE LOCKE, Associated Press Writer
Sun May 6, 1:49 PM ET

BERKELEY, Calif. - A fit of spring-cleaning led Eric Brooks to a box of old newspaper clips from 1997. That's when he was the lone black student enrolled in the incoming law school class at the University of California, Berkeley, following the end of affirmative action admissions.

He didn't read them. That box doesn't hold pleasant memories.

"I felt bad for myself at the time because of my situation, but worse for the people who were denied admission," said Brooks.

Ten years later, the numbers of underrepresented minorities at UC have rebounded at the undergraduate level, although they haven't kept pace with high school graduation rates. But more blacks and Hispanics are also going to lesser-known branches of the 10-campus system and fewer to the flagships of Berkeley and UCLA.

Meanwhile, the movement toward race-blind admissions is spreading. Florida, Texas and Michigan have rewritten their admissions rules. Ward Connerly, the UC regent who started it all, is taking his campaign for race-blind admissions to as many as five more states next year, including Colorado, Missouri, Oklahoma and Arizona. "If things unfold the way I am predicting they will unfold," Connerly said, "I think we are witnessing the end of an era."

___

The debate over affirmative action begins with how you define affirmative action.

To Connerly, it's a system of "racial preferences" that drive a wedge between people. To his opponents, it's a way to recognize that not everyone starts with the same advantages.

The debate came to UC in 1995 when, in a bitterly contested 14-10 vote, the system's governing Board of Regents voted to stop looking at applicants' race, effective for graduate students in 1997 and for undergrads the following year.

In 1996, Connerly took the movement statewide with Proposition 209, which banned consideration of race in public hiring, contracting and education.

A similar measure passed in Washington state in 1998, and Texas affirmative action policies fell in 1996 with a federal appeals court ruling.

In Florida, Connerly launched a campaign similar to Proposition 209. Then-Gov. Jeb Bush opposed the measure as divisive but implemented his own "One Florida" plan eliminating the use of race or gender in higher education and government hiring.

The tide seemed to turn in 2003 when the Supreme Court, ruling in two University of Michigan cases, said race could be used as a limited factor in college admissions. But Connerly and his supporters countered with a successful initiative last fall banning consideration of race in Michigan admissions.

What has it all meant?

Florida figures released last fall showed black students made up 13.7 percent of enrollment in state universities, compared to 14.2 percent when One Florida was implemented in 1999.

At the University of Texas at Austin, minority enrollment dropped after the 1996 federal court ruling, but has since rebounded. Last fall, 1,914 black students enrolled compared to 1,911 in 1996.

University of Michigan officials say they won't defy the ban on race-based admissions, but they won't give up on diversity. "We don't believe that we can deliver a 21st-century education if we're not a diverse learning community," said Julie Peterson, associate vice president for media relations and public affairs.

___

The year Brooks enrolled, 14 black students were admitted to UC's Boalt Hall School of Law, but none attended. He'd been admitted the year before but deferred admission, making him the last black student admitted under the old affirmative action policies. Last fall, 13 black students enrolled, a big increase from 1997 but still below the mid-'90s totals of 20 or more.

And with more blacks and Hispanics graduating from high schools now than 10 years ago, the gap between those numbers and UC enrollment has widened. "The bottom line on Proposition 209, from where I sit, is it has continued to suppress enrollment," said Ed Tom, director of Boalt admissions.

But does it matter if the numbers of black students dip at elite campuses? "Not to me it doesn't," said Connerly. "As long as all of our kids have an equal chance to get an education."

Interestingly, Asians, who did not benefit under affirmative action, now make up 36 percent of admissions, up from 33 percent in 1997. That makes Asians overrepresented since California is roughly 44 percent white, 35 percent Hispanic, 12 percent Asian and nearly 7 percent black.

Connerly thinks the growth in Asian admissions since '97 shows they were being discriminated against under the old system.

But Van Nguyen, a Berkeley student of Vietnamese descent and member of a task force studying the impact of dropping affirmative action, also sees discrimination in the new system. "I don't think it's a liberal-conservative issue," he said. "It's really, Do you believe in equality? Do you believe in access? Do you believe in everyone having an equal shot to get to Berkeley? If you believe that then we need to really rethink this (Proposition) 209 issue."

___

Brooks recalls sitting on the law school steps reading bar exam passage rates broken down by race. "I remember thinking: `Well, that's going to be fun when I take the bar,'" he said. "'It's either going to be 100 or zero.'"

In 2000, he did pass the bar. He became active in diversity issues, serving on the state bar's ethnic minority relations committee.

Brooks sees a way for affirmative action to consider merit, but he doesn't think it's time to banish the concept. "I think that it's useful in that it remedies past discrimination," he said.

But Connerly thinks "most Americans are with me. They realize that this thing has probably outlived its usefulness and it's just a question of how it's going to end and when it's going to end, not whether it's going to end."

___

On the Net: Univ of Calif: http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070506/...PSd3P0uHis0NUE

SCOTUS decides racial preference cases Update: Equality wins!
By Michelle Malkin • June 28, 2007 09:43 AM If any of you followed my work at the Seattle Times, you know how closely I covered the battle against government racial preferences in Washington state. You may remember that Washington passed Initiative 200 to ban government racial preferences in public hiring and education. Despite massive establishment opposition (led by my then-publisher), the measure was approved overwhelmingly–even in liberal enclaves like Seattle and other parts of western Washington. As in California and Michigan, the Left fought bitterly to undermine the letter and spirit of the law. One of the areas where inequality in the name of “diversity” reigned was the Seattle public school system. Several parents rose to challenge the racial bean-counting and have fought in court since 1998. Their case reached the Supreme Court, which will issue a decision this morning. I’ll be busy liveblogging the Senate shamnesty debate, but the folks over at SCOTUSblog will be covering the release of the racial preference cases wall-to-wall live beginning at 10am. Stay tuned : http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070628/...schools_race_3

Supreme Court rejects school race plans
By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer
Thu Jun 28, 10:25 AM ET

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected public school assignment plans that take account of students' race.

The decision in cases affecting schools in Louisville, Ky., and Seattle could imperil similar plans in hundreds of districts nationwide, and it leaves public school systems with a limited arsenal to maintain racial diversity.

The court split, 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts announcing the court's judgment. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote a dissent that was joined by the court's other three liberals.

Dems say march to racial unity not over
By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer
49 minutes ago

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070629/...wJGqeduKZAw_IE

WASHINGTON - A historically diverse field of Democratic presidential candidates — a woman, a black, an Hispanic and five whites — denounced an hours-old Supreme Court affirmative action ruling Thursday night and said the nation's slow march to racial unity is far from over. "We have made enormous progress, but the progress we have made is not good enough," said Sen. Barack Obama, the son of a man from Kenya and a woman from Kansas.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the first female candidate with a serious shot at the presidency, drew the night's largest cheer when she suggested there was a hint of racism in the way AIDS is addressed in this country. "Let me just put this in perspective: If HIV-AIDS were the leading cause of death of white women between the ages of 25 and 34 there would be an outraged, outcry in this country," said the New York senator.

In their third primary debate, the two leading candidates and their fellow Democrats played to the emotions of a predominantly black audience, fighting for a voting bloc that is crucial in the party's nomination process.

One issue not raised by questioners, the war in Iraq, dominated the past two debates. Queries about AIDS, criminal justice, education, taxes, outsourcing jobs, poverty and the Bush administration's response to Hurricane Katrina all led to the same point: The racial divide still exists.

"There is so much left to be done," Clinton said, "and for anyone to assert that race is not a problem in America is to deny the reality in front of our very eyes."

While the first two debates focused on their narrow differences on Iraq, moderator Tavis Smiley promised to steer the candidates to other issues that matter to black America. In turn, the candidates said those issues mattered to them. "This issue of poverty in America is the cause of my life," said John Edwards, the 2004 vice presidential nominee.

Said Obama: "It starts from birth."

Obama criticized President Bush's No Child Left Behind program. "You can't leave money behind ... and unfortunately that's what's been done," he said.

Clinton spoke of her efforts in Arkansas to raise school standards, "most especially for minority children."

Delaware Sen. Joe Biden urged people to be tested for the AIDS virus, noting that he and Obama had done so. Cracked the Illinois senator: "I just want to make clear I got tested with Michelle," his wife, Obama said drawing laughter from the predominantly black audience.

The debate was held at Howard University, a historically black college in the nation's capital.

Black voters are a large and critical part of the Democratic primary electorate, making the debate a must-attend for candidates seeking the party's presidential nomination.

A half century of desegregation law — and racial tension — was laid bare for the Democrats hours before they met. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court clamped historic new limits on school desegregation plans.

Clinton said the decision "turned the clock back" on history, and her competitors agreed.

The conservative majority cited the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case to bolster its precedent-shattering decision, an act termed a "cruel irony" by Justice John Paul Stevens in his dissent. The 1954 ruling led to the end of state-sponsored school segregation in the United States.

Obama, the only black candidate in the eight-person field, spoke of civil rights leaders who fought for Brown v. Board of Education and other precedents curbed by the high court. "If it were not for them," he said, "I would not be standing here."

Biden noted that he voted against confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the majority opinion. He said he was tough on Roberts. "The problem is the rest of us were not tough enough," he said, seeming to take a jab at fellow Democrats. "They have turned the court upside down."

All the Democratic candidates in the Senate opposed the confirmation of conservative Justice Samuel Alito, another of President Bush's nominees. Clinton, Biden and Obama voted against Roberts; Sen. Chris Dodd voted for his nomination.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, the first major Hispanic candidate, said race is about more than passing new laws and appointing new justices. "The next president is going to have to lead," he said, vowing to do so.

Dodd said "the shame of resegregation in our country has been occurring for years."

The nomination fight begins in Iowa and New Hampshire, two states with relatively few minorities. But blacks and other minority voters become critical in Nevada, South Carolina and Florida before the campaign turns to a multi-state primary on Feb. 5.

About one in 10 voters in the 2004 election were black, according to exit polls, and they voted 9-to-1 for Democrat John Kerry. In some states, blacks make up a bigger share of the voters. In South Carolina, for example, blacks made up about 30 percent of the electorate in 2004, but were more than half of the voters in the state's Democratic primary.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, the country's only black governor, introduced the candidates with a warning that a dispirited GOP "is not enough to elect a Democratic president nor should it be. We need to offer a more positive and hopeful vision ... to run on what we are for and not just what we are against."

Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich and former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel also debated.

The race-based school assignment cases -- the MSM coverage

I haven't paid much attention to MSM coverage of the Supreme Court's decision this week striking down two race-based school assignment systems. My information has come from the opinions of the Justices and from a few law blogs. However, the MSM blurbs I've seen seemed more designed to alarm than to inform.

So too with this story in the Washington Post. For one thing, it states that "the court's four-member conservative wing said the use of race in school assignments always violated the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection." This is wrong. First, Chief Justice Roberts' pluarality opinion does not question prior rulings that, if a school system has discriminated in the past, race-based assignments can be used to vindicate the state's compelling interest in remedying the effects of that discrimination. Second, as I have argued, the plurality doesn't appear to reach the question of whether racial classifications can be used to avoid racial isolation on a record demonstrating that such use of classifications will bring about educational benefits.

The authors of the Post story also seem unduly alarmist about the likely impact of the ruling of the Court as a whole (here I assume that Justice Kennedy's opinion most closely embodies that ruling). The Post's headline is "court ruling likely to further segregate schools, educators say." The authors rely on a quotation from some Columbia professor, which they use in their opening paragraph. She warns that the effect of the decision will be "a major increase in racial segregation that will cause our children to be less prepared to live in our diverse society." But other educators and experts say that (for better or for worse) school systems may decide to use socioeconomic status as a race-neutral means of achieving racial diversity. And, towards the end of the article, we learn that this approach supposedly has had success in bringing about diversity and improving minority performance on tests.

Still, the authors sniff that "the most effective way to achieve racial diversity is by taking race into account, most experts agree. . ." Actually, the most effective way to achieve racial diversity in schools is to impose racial diversity in housing. But the law has long been clear that the government must proceed with extreme caution when dealing with racial classifications. Thus, it is well-established that the government must explore alternatives to the use of such classifications even when trying to achieve compelling goals.

The MSM and certain "experts" may find this consitutionally-based doctrine inconvenient, but that's no excuse for indulging in alarmist speculation.

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/018096.php

So too with this story in the Washington Post.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...062902134.html

SCOTUS ruled on a racial preferences case today.

The decision was a limited victory for opponents of racial preferences, but the court also punted and sent the case back to the lower court. http://twitchy.com/2013/06/24/an-inc...o-lower-court/

Justice Thomas dissented with a scathing and glorious opinion. http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions...1-345_l5gm.pdf

"Attaining diversity for its own sake is a nonstarter."

- Clarence Thomas 9:36 AM - 24 Jun 2013

The Supreme Court Goes Small on Affirmative Action
While Justice Thomas condemns it in a strongly worded opinion
By Matt Berman, Brian Resnick and Matt Vasilogambros
Updated: June 24, 2013 | 12:07 p.m.

In a 7-1 decision, the Supreme Court vacated and remanded the Fifth Circuit's decision in the Fisher v. University of Texas affirmative action case. Justice Ginsburg was the lone dissent, with Justice Kagan recused. In effect, the decision sent the case back to the lower court, with no major decision here on the fate of affirmative action in the United States. Here's Justice Kennedy writing in the majority opinion: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions...1-345_l5gm.pdf

The District Court and Court of Appeals confined the scrutiny inquiry in too narrow a way by deferringto the University's good faith in its use of racial classifications and affirming the grant of summary judgment on that basis. The Court vacates that judgment, but fairness to the litigants and the courts that heard the case requires that it be remanded so that the admissions process can be considered and judged under a correct analysis.

The decision, while obviously not a major one, took the court a uniquely long time to decide. The court heard arguments in the case last October. While the court as a whole did not have much to say on affirmative action in the decision, Justice Clarence Thomas in his opinion said that he personally would've overturned the use of race in making admissions decisions in higher education:

I write separately to explain that I would overrule Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U. S. 306 (2003), and hold that a State's use of race in higher education admissions decisions is categorically prohibited by the Equal Protection Clause.

Later, in his opinion, he explained his thoughts on the larger matter of affirmative action in higher education.

Attaining diversity for its own sake is a nonstarter. As even Grutter recognized, the pursuit of diversity as an end is nothing more than impermissible "racial balancing." ... Rather, diversity can only be the means by which the University obtains educational benefits; it cannot be an end pursued for its own sake. Therefore, the educational benefits allegedly produced by diversity must rise to the level of a compelling state interest in order for the program to survive strict scrutiny.

Justice Thomas also compared affirmative action in education to segregation in the South:

It is also noteworthy that, in our desegregation cases, we rejected arguments that are virtually identical to those advanced by the University today. The University asserts, for instance, that the diversity obtained through its discriminatory admissions program prepares its students to become leaders in a diverse society... The segregationists likewise defended segregation on the ground that it provided more leadership opportunities for blacks.

In her dissent, Ginsburg argues that there was enough in the case to make a firm ruling in favor of the university's practices. Race, she says, is a factor no one can ignore in college admissions.

Petitioner urges that Texas' Top Ten Percent Law and race-blind holistic review of each application achieve significant diversity, so the University must be content with those alternatives. I have said before and reiterate here that only an ostrich could regard the supposedly neutral alternatives as race unconscious.

"I have several times explained why government actors, including state universities, need not be blind to the lingering effects of 'an overtly discriminatory past,' the legacy of 'centuries of law-sanctioned inequality.' … Among constitutionally permissible options, I remain convinced, 'those that candidly disclose their consideration of race [are] preferable to those that conceal it.'"

The case was brought forth by a white woman who was rejected admission to the university in 2008. The woman, Abigail Fisher, argued that the university unfairly used race quotas in the admissions process and therefore made entry more dificult for her and allowed less-qualified racial minorities to get in. The university argued that Fisher did not meet the qualifications for admissions, regardless of her race.

The university said that it has the right to assemble a student body that reflects its mission. And because of inequality throughout the state, diversity in the student body must be assisted. That's where the university's policy comes in. The school guarantees admission for high school students who finish in the top 10 percent of their class. Race is a factor for the remaining quarter of students admitted to the university.

The affirmative action case is just one of the four major cases the Supreme Court is expected to issue opinions on this week related to equality. But as David A. Strauss, a law professor at University of Chicago, told the New York Times' Adam Liptak, "It's hard to imagine somebody happy with everything" that the court decides. "Aside from Justice Kennedy."

Read more .... http://www.nationaljournal.com/polit...ction-20130624

‘Uncle Tom,’ ‘token’: Justice Thomas dissents; Tolerance brigade hurls racial slurs

Posted at 12:26 pm on June 24, 2013 by Twitchy Staff http://twitchy.com/2013/06/24/uncle-...-racial-slurs/


As Dr. Ben Carson said, the most vicious racists are on the Left. Today is no different. http://twitchy.com/2013/04/02/dr-ben...ove-him-right/

Minn. state Rep. Ryan Winkler calls Clarence Thomas an Uncle Tom, claims he didn’t know it was offensive ==> http://twitchy.com/2013/06/25/minn-s...was-offensive/