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> It is very clear that race-conscious admissions are systematically racist and discriminatory. Every time the SCOTUS hears one of these cases they acknowledge

> It is very clear that race-conscious admissions are systematically racist and discriminatory. Every time the SCOTUS hears one of these cases they acknowledge that, but the justification is that these classes are/have been historically discriminated against and constitutional admissions which take race into consideration are a temporary measure to right these historical wrongs by leveling the playing field. So the end goal even according to SCOTUS is for these measures to eventually become unconstitutional.

tomschlick 7y ago
> but the justification is that these classes are/have been historically discriminated against and constitutional admissions which take race into consideration are a temporary measure to right these historical wrongs by leveling the playing field. So under that thought process... when does the temporary measure end? Is there a specific goal? Or is it something unachievable like "when income inequality is fixed".
- throwaway_law 7y ago
  I suppose its not far from the SCOTUS 1st Amendment cases of porn/obscenity, they can't quite define it, but they'll know it when they see it. Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003) (link: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/539/306/ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/539/306/) >The requirement that all race-conscious admissions programs have a termination point "assure[s] all citizens that the deviation from the norm of equal treatment of all racial and ethnic groups is a temporary matter, a measure taken in the service of the goal of equality itself." Richmond v. J. A. Croson Co., 488 U. S., at 510 >But such measures, the Convention instructs, "shall in no case entail as a consequence the maintenance of unequal or separate rights for different racial groups after the objectives for which they were taken have been achieved." Ibid.; see also Art. 1(4) (similarly providing for temporally limited affirmative action); Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, Annex to G. A. Res. 34/180, 34 U. N. GAOR, 34th Sess., Res. Supp. (No. 46), p. 194, U. N. Doc. A/34/46, Art. 4(1) (1979) (authorizing "temporary special measures aimed at accelerating de facto equality" that "shall be discontinued when the objectives of equality of opportunity and treatment have been achieved").
- smashthepants 7y ago
  Income inequality is only "unachievable" exactly because of thinking like this. If people were genuinely invested in equality they would be asking "what can i do to get us there faster?" instead of being defeatist and calling it unachievable because you didn't personally create the problem.
  - asdf21 7y ago
    You didn't answer his question, created a strawman, put words in his mouth, implied he doesn't care about equality (isn't treating people equally, regardless of race equality?)... goodness.
    - smashthepants 7y ago
      He explicitly said income equality is unachievable. I didn't put those words in his mouth. You can't answer the question of "when" if a person has already decided the goal is unachievable. Again, those were his words not mine The temporary measures will end WHEN people are genuinely interested enough to help regardless of whether they created the problem. That is my answer. You just don't like it. And that's ok....
      - tomschlick 7y ago
        When, in the history of humanity, has income ever been at an acceptable level of equality? If you/the people who support such a policy can't define an explicit goal then I'd say that's pretty unachievable.
        smashthepants 7y ago
        The goal is defined - equality. If it mattered to you it wouldn't be a complicated concept to grasp. And just as I said in my previous comment, this is the exact sentiment that prevents the goal of equality from being reached. Just because something has never been done that doesn't mean that it can't be done. And if you and everyone who doesn't support such a policy are unwilling to participate, then you're right, it will never be achieved.
- balls187 7y ago
  > So under that thought process... when does the temporary measure end? Difficult to answer, and honestly not at all a priority to have an answer.
  - tomschlick 7y ago
    It is when the courts say as a temporary measure its ok. You have to define temporary or else it just becomes de-facto permanent.
    - balls187 7y ago
      > You have to define temporary or else it just becomes de-facto permanent. Perhaps, once it becomes settled law. However given Roe v Wade is still up for debate means that defacto permanence is not really a problem. The answer then is "When the supreme court decides that the argument presented is sufficient to warrant no longer allowing race-concious admissions is a factor."
      - vageli 7y ago
        > > You have to define temporary or else it just becomes de-facto permanent. > Perhaps, once it becomes settled law. However given Roe v Wade is still up for debate means that defacto permanence is not really a problem. > The answer then is "When the supreme court decides that the argument presented is sufficient to warrant no longer allowing race-concious admissions is a factor." Are new Roe v Wade like cases being heard by the court? There's a chilling effect to people bringing these cases to consider.
        mlevental 7y ago
        https://www.ajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/federal-judge-blocks-georgia-anti-abortion-law/yh1ttzbYdTcqiUT7OkyqkO/ https://www.ajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/fede... I'm sure you're aware that like 10 other states have similar cases working their way through the court system
- bigendian1234 7y ago
  FWIW, I'm a white person who used to think of affirmative action as unfair discrimination. That was true until I spent time volunteering teaching technical skills to kids in poor immigrant neighborhoods. Now that I have had an up close experience with these communities, I'm here to tell you institutional racism is real and we're far from it making sense to end these programs. There simply is not a quick easy solution and those who are not oppressed simply have no real frame of reference to understand the problem. I encourage every person who feels these programs are unfair to spend time volunteering in poor minority communities.
  - packet881 7y ago
    Feel free to make your voice heard by your vote and donate from your paycheck. This is a zero sum game and my ancestors were not oppressing either latinos or Africans. I'll make my voice heard by not voting for Democrats.
    - wavefunction 7y ago
      This Judge was confirmed by the Senate which has been in Republican hands for some time. You should go start your own Harvard and you can exclude or admit anyone you want.
      - koolba 7y ago
        > This Judge was confirmed by the Senate which has been in Republican hands for some time. The judge was appointed by President Obama and confirmed by a Democrat controlled Senate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allison_Dale_Burroughs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allison_Dale_Burroughs Federal judgeships are lifetime appointments so the current makeup of the Senate, short of impeaching her, has no relevance.
    - shadowgovt 7y ago
      Education is not a zero-sum game.
      - 7y ago
- rtkwe 7y ago
  For starters I'd say when the racial wealth gap has closed and when racial outcomes in education even out. So many of the factors that feed back into keeping those gaps alive can be traced directly back to racist policies like red lining that only ended less than a human life time ago.
- shadowgovt 7y ago
  Who says fixing income inequality is unachievable?
  - JPKab 7y ago
    Are all of your coworkers equally productive? Neighbors? Relatives? The answer for all 3 for me personally is no. I have family members who make decisions based on different priorities which change their income. My coworkers differ radically in their abilities and work ethic. How can they have equal incomes in this scenario? There is a way to do this, and it hasn't worked any time it's been tried.
    - shadowgovt 7y ago
      I mean, "universal basic income" would be a good start.
      - big_chungus 7y ago
        Adding one thousand to most statistical measures will either not change it or shift it by one thousand.
      - tomschlick 7y ago
        Until everyone's cost of living goes up because they have an extra $1k/mo and landlords / retailers know it. The same thing happened with guaranteed student loans. When people have money to burn the market will react by increasing prices.
        shadowgovt 7y ago
        It might, but it turns out macroeconomics isn't that simple.
    - jqgatsby 7y ago
      I don't think "fixing income inequality" needs to mean that everyone is paid the same amount. It's reasonable to believe that <insert billionaire here> isn't a million times more productive than their median employee, and that factors other than pure merit allowed them to amass that much wealth. Even if you did think that they were that meritorious, you could still make an argument that "fairness" should involve balancing both merit and utility (in this case referring to the diminishing marginal utility of money).
Jun8 7y ago
Jews were also historically discriminated against, e.g. "Dean Milton Winternitz's instructions were remarkably precise: 'Never admit more than five Jews, take only two Italian Catholics, and take no blacks at all.'" (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_quota#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_quota#United_States) Also related: California Alien Land Law of 1913 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Alien_Land_Law_of_1913 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Alien_Land_Law_of_1...), targeting mostly Asians (Japanase, Chinese, and Koreans). SCOTUS reaffirmed this law in 1923, it was finally invalidated in 1952.
- throwaway_law 7y ago
  >Jews were also historically discriminated against And Jewish people are a protected class, even defined by SCOTUS as a race for purposes of Civil Rights/Anti-discrimination laws
- dmix 7y ago
  Why should historical discrimination matter to the policy? If at all, it should be about discrimination today.
  - smashthepants 7y ago
    Ummm...because historical discrimination has led to an environment where educational resources are unequally distributed? The effects of those historical policies still exist...and they should therefore be taken into account today...since they still exist...the effects...
  - fzeroracer 7y ago
    Let's say that your parents were discriminated against, and were unable to go to college, or find a good job, or were actively lynched due to their race. Do you think their kids might be affected by say, the economic troubles their parents might've gone through, or the fact that they lost family due to the racial animus at the time? Or how about if those families were relegated to places designed specifically for them, to keep them away from the rest of the populace, with less opportunity for education or work. Do you not think that might have a multi-generational effect?
kanox 7y ago
> So the end goal even according to SCOTUS is for these measures to eventually become unconstitutional. This shouldn't be an acceptable justification, "righting historical wrongs" is a highly subjective policy goal which shouldn't be relevant to a verdict of "constitutionality".
- danharaj 7y ago
  How did you come to this conclusion?
yourbandsucks 7y ago
So if we had Chad the legacy admission against Darnell with a single mother, I could see what you were talking about... But that's not what's at stake here. Chad is doing great, legacy admissions are alive and well. Meanwhile Cletus and Liu are being discriminated against on race despite their real history that flies in the face of your framing. Why must they be thrown under the bus? Why not Chad?
BubRoss 7y ago
How much racism is necessary to get to the ideal of not selecting people based on race?
CWuestefeld 7y ago
the justification is that these classes are/have been historically discriminated against and constitutional admissions which take race into consideration are a temporary measure to right these historical wrongs No, that is not the justification being used. The argument used to justify this racism is that a rich education requires exposure to diverse people and ideas, and so the educational mission of the school requires that they bring in sufficient numbers of otherwise-underrepresented racial groups. If they can't do this, they say, they won't be able to give their students a good education. [Note that I'm just playing devil's advocate by citing their view; I actually think it's bollocks. Sure, being surrounded by diverse ideas is important in education. But if they were truly interested in this, then they'd be trying to recruit based on that actual argument, by looking for Protestants and Catholics and Mormons; tall and short people; introverts and extroverts; right-handers and left-handers; city folk and country folk. The fact that the only dimension along which they measure diversity is race reveals that the justification they give is nothing but a convenient rationalization.]
- kemiller 7y ago
  They do in fact look at diversity along those lines too.
- aesthesia 7y ago
  Is that the only dimension along which schools measure diversity? It's much easier to become a National Merit Scholar in some states than others; I imagine similar considerations are made in university admissions. A cursory search suggests that geography is indeed taken into account in admissions: https://qz.com/653167/if-you-want-to-get-into-an-elite-college-you-might-consider-moving-to-one-of-these-states/ https://qz.com/653167/if-you-want-to-get-into-an-elite-colle... Similarly, coming from a minority religious or cultural background can also be a plus for a college application. Perhaps your complaint is that the process by which these benefit an applicant is less systematized than it is for race? Or that racial preferences are too systematized? The other categories you mention are likely to be diverse by default---colleges already have a pretty good distribution of short and tall people, and the hand dominance distribution is also pretty representative. There aren't any mechanisms that impede the society-wide distribution of these traits from replicating itself in the student body.
flippinburgers 7y ago
Because clearly Asians are at fault.
gnicholas 7y ago
> the justification is that these classes are/have been historically discriminated against and constitutional admissions which take race into consideration are a temporary measure to right these historical wrongs by leveling the playing field. This is actually incorrect. The only rationale SCOTUS has ever accepted for affirmative action is to create diverse student bodies. They have never accepted past discrimination as a rationale. For what it's worth, I'm a (former) lawyer. But you don't have to take my word for it! See https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/539/306/#tab-opinion-1961291 https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/539/306/#tab-opi...
thaumasiotes 7y ago
> Every time the SCOTUS hears one of these cases they acknowledge that, but the justification is that these classes are/have been historically discriminated against and constitutional admissions which take race into consideration are a temporary measure to right these historical wrongs by leveling the playing field. Actually, SCOTUS specifically identified this motivation ("right these historical wrongs") as improper and affirmative action programs premised on it are illegal. That is why affirmative action programs instead talk about "diversity" -- SCOTUS blessed "diversity" as an exercise of judgment by the school that would allow otherwise impermissible race-based admission.
- throwaway_law 7y ago
  No, that is wrong, the Justices are very clear about the historical context of these programs. Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003) (link: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/539/306/ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/539/306/) >The requirement that all race-conscious admissions programs have a termination point "assure[s] all citizens that the deviation from the norm of equal treatment of all racial and ethnic groups is a temporary matter, a measure taken in the service of the goal of equality itself." Richmond v. J. A. Croson Co., 488 U. S., at 510 If it were about diversity as you claim, rather than righting historical wrongs of inequality, there would be no concept of a termination point of these programs as diversity would be an ongoing concern ad infinitum.

tomschlick 7y ago

> but the justification is that these classes are/have been historically discriminated against and constitutional admissions which take race into consideration are a temporary measure to right these historical wrongs by leveling the playing field. So under that thought process... when does the temporary measure end? Is there a specific goal? Or is it something unachievable like "when income inequality is fixed".

throwaway_law 7y ago
I suppose its not far from the SCOTUS 1st Amendment cases of porn/obscenity, they can't quite define it, but they'll know it when they see it. Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003) (link: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/539/306/ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/539/306/) >The requirement that all race-conscious admissions programs have a termination point "assure[s] all citizens that the deviation from the norm of equal treatment of all racial and ethnic groups is a temporary matter, a measure taken in the service of the goal of equality itself." Richmond v. J. A. Croson Co., 488 U. S., at 510 >But such measures, the Convention instructs, "shall in no case entail as a consequence the maintenance of unequal or separate rights for different racial groups after the objectives for which they were taken have been achieved." Ibid.; see also Art. 1(4) (similarly providing for temporally limited affirmative action); Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, Annex to G. A. Res. 34/180, 34 U. N. GAOR, 34th Sess., Res. Supp. (No. 46), p. 194, U. N. Doc. A/34/46, Art. 4(1) (1979) (authorizing "temporary special measures aimed at accelerating de facto equality" that "shall be discontinued when the objectives of equality of opportunity and treatment have been achieved").
smashthepants 7y ago
Income inequality is only "unachievable" exactly because of thinking like this. If people were genuinely invested in equality they would be asking "what can i do to get us there faster?" instead of being defeatist and calling it unachievable because you didn't personally create the problem.
- asdf21 7y ago
  You didn't answer his question, created a strawman, put words in his mouth, implied he doesn't care about equality (isn't treating people equally, regardless of race equality?)... goodness.
  - smashthepants 7y ago
    He explicitly said income equality is unachievable. I didn't put those words in his mouth. You can't answer the question of "when" if a person has already decided the goal is unachievable. Again, those were his words not mine The temporary measures will end WHEN people are genuinely interested enough to help regardless of whether they created the problem. That is my answer. You just don't like it. And that's ok....
    - tomschlick 7y ago
      When, in the history of humanity, has income ever been at an acceptable level of equality? If you/the people who support such a policy can't define an explicit goal then I'd say that's pretty unachievable.
      - smashthepants 7y ago
        The goal is defined - equality. If it mattered to you it wouldn't be a complicated concept to grasp. And just as I said in my previous comment, this is the exact sentiment that prevents the goal of equality from being reached. Just because something has never been done that doesn't mean that it can't be done. And if you and everyone who doesn't support such a policy are unwilling to participate, then you're right, it will never be achieved.
balls187 7y ago
> So under that thought process... when does the temporary measure end? Difficult to answer, and honestly not at all a priority to have an answer.
- tomschlick 7y ago
  It is when the courts say as a temporary measure its ok. You have to define temporary or else it just becomes de-facto permanent.
  - balls187 7y ago
    > You have to define temporary or else it just becomes de-facto permanent. Perhaps, once it becomes settled law. However given Roe v Wade is still up for debate means that defacto permanence is not really a problem. The answer then is "When the supreme court decides that the argument presented is sufficient to warrant no longer allowing race-concious admissions is a factor."
    - vageli 7y ago
      > > You have to define temporary or else it just becomes de-facto permanent. > Perhaps, once it becomes settled law. However given Roe v Wade is still up for debate means that defacto permanence is not really a problem. > The answer then is "When the supreme court decides that the argument presented is sufficient to warrant no longer allowing race-concious admissions is a factor." Are new Roe v Wade like cases being heard by the court? There's a chilling effect to people bringing these cases to consider.
      - mlevental 7y ago
        https://www.ajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/federal-judge-blocks-georgia-anti-abortion-law/yh1ttzbYdTcqiUT7OkyqkO/ https://www.ajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/fede... I'm sure you're aware that like 10 other states have similar cases working their way through the court system
bigendian1234 7y ago
FWIW, I'm a white person who used to think of affirmative action as unfair discrimination. That was true until I spent time volunteering teaching technical skills to kids in poor immigrant neighborhoods. Now that I have had an up close experience with these communities, I'm here to tell you institutional racism is real and we're far from it making sense to end these programs. There simply is not a quick easy solution and those who are not oppressed simply have no real frame of reference to understand the problem. I encourage every person who feels these programs are unfair to spend time volunteering in poor minority communities.
- packet881 7y ago
  Feel free to make your voice heard by your vote and donate from your paycheck. This is a zero sum game and my ancestors were not oppressing either latinos or Africans. I'll make my voice heard by not voting for Democrats.
  - wavefunction 7y ago
    This Judge was confirmed by the Senate which has been in Republican hands for some time. You should go start your own Harvard and you can exclude or admit anyone you want.
    - koolba 7y ago
      > This Judge was confirmed by the Senate which has been in Republican hands for some time. The judge was appointed by President Obama and confirmed by a Democrat controlled Senate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allison_Dale_Burroughs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allison_Dale_Burroughs Federal judgeships are lifetime appointments so the current makeup of the Senate, short of impeaching her, has no relevance.
  - shadowgovt 7y ago
    Education is not a zero-sum game.
    - 7y ago
rtkwe 7y ago
For starters I'd say when the racial wealth gap has closed and when racial outcomes in education even out. So many of the factors that feed back into keeping those gaps alive can be traced directly back to racist policies like red lining that only ended less than a human life time ago.
shadowgovt 7y ago
Who says fixing income inequality is unachievable?
- JPKab 7y ago
  Are all of your coworkers equally productive? Neighbors? Relatives? The answer for all 3 for me personally is no. I have family members who make decisions based on different priorities which change their income. My coworkers differ radically in their abilities and work ethic. How can they have equal incomes in this scenario? There is a way to do this, and it hasn't worked any time it's been tried.
  - shadowgovt 7y ago
    I mean, "universal basic income" would be a good start.
    - big_chungus 7y ago
      Adding one thousand to most statistical measures will either not change it or shift it by one thousand.
    - tomschlick 7y ago
      Until everyone's cost of living goes up because they have an extra $1k/mo and landlords / retailers know it. The same thing happened with guaranteed student loans. When people have money to burn the market will react by increasing prices.
      - shadowgovt 7y ago
        It might, but it turns out macroeconomics isn't that simple.
  - jqgatsby 7y ago
    I don't think "fixing income inequality" needs to mean that everyone is paid the same amount. It's reasonable to believe that <insert billionaire here> isn't a million times more productive than their median employee, and that factors other than pure merit allowed them to amass that much wealth. Even if you did think that they were that meritorious, you could still make an argument that "fairness" should involve balancing both merit and utility (in this case referring to the diminishing marginal utility of money).

Jun8 7y ago

Jews were also historically discriminated against, e.g. "Dean Milton Winternitz's instructions were remarkably precise: 'Never admit more than five Jews, take only two Italian Catholics, and take no blacks at all.'" (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_quota#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_quota#United_States) Also related: California Alien Land Law of 1913 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Alien_Land_Law_of_1913 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Alien_Land_Law_of_1...), targeting mostly Asians (Japanase, Chinese, and Koreans). SCOTUS reaffirmed this law in 1923, it was finally invalidated in 1952.

throwaway_law 7y ago
>Jews were also historically discriminated against And Jewish people are a protected class, even defined by SCOTUS as a race for purposes of Civil Rights/Anti-discrimination laws
dmix 7y ago
Why should historical discrimination matter to the policy? If at all, it should be about discrimination today.
- smashthepants 7y ago
  Ummm...because historical discrimination has led to an environment where educational resources are unequally distributed? The effects of those historical policies still exist...and they should therefore be taken into account today...since they still exist...the effects...
- fzeroracer 7y ago
  Let's say that your parents were discriminated against, and were unable to go to college, or find a good job, or were actively lynched due to their race. Do you think their kids might be affected by say, the economic troubles their parents might've gone through, or the fact that they lost family due to the racial animus at the time? Or how about if those families were relegated to places designed specifically for them, to keep them away from the rest of the populace, with less opportunity for education or work. Do you not think that might have a multi-generational effect?

kanox 7y ago

> So the end goal even according to SCOTUS is for these measures to eventually become unconstitutional. This shouldn't be an acceptable justification, "righting historical wrongs" is a highly subjective policy goal which shouldn't be relevant to a verdict of "constitutionality".

danharaj 7y ago
How did you come to this conclusion?

yourbandsucks 7y ago

So if we had Chad the legacy admission against Darnell with a single mother, I could see what you were talking about... But that's not what's at stake here. Chad is doing great, legacy admissions are alive and well. Meanwhile Cletus and Liu are being discriminated against on race despite their real history that flies in the face of your framing. Why must they be thrown under the bus? Why not Chad?

BubRoss 7y ago

How much racism is necessary to get to the ideal of not selecting people based on race?

CWuestefeld 7y ago

the justification is that these classes are/have been historically discriminated against and constitutional admissions which take race into consideration are a temporary measure to right these historical wrongs No, that is not the justification being used. The argument used to justify this racism is that a rich education requires exposure to diverse people and ideas, and so the educational mission of the school requires that they bring in sufficient numbers of otherwise-underrepresented racial groups. If they can't do this, they say, they won't be able to give their students a good education. [Note that I'm just playing devil's advocate by citing their view; I actually think it's bollocks. Sure, being surrounded by diverse ideas is important in education. But if they were truly interested in this, then they'd be trying to recruit based on that actual argument, by looking for Protestants and Catholics and Mormons; tall and short people; introverts and extroverts; right-handers and left-handers; city folk and country folk. The fact that the only dimension along which they measure diversity is race reveals that the justification they give is nothing but a convenient rationalization.]

kemiller 7y ago
They do in fact look at diversity along those lines too.
aesthesia 7y ago
Is that the only dimension along which schools measure diversity? It's much easier to become a National Merit Scholar in some states than others; I imagine similar considerations are made in university admissions. A cursory search suggests that geography is indeed taken into account in admissions: https://qz.com/653167/if-you-want-to-get-into-an-elite-college-you-might-consider-moving-to-one-of-these-states/ https://qz.com/653167/if-you-want-to-get-into-an-elite-colle... Similarly, coming from a minority religious or cultural background can also be a plus for a college application. Perhaps your complaint is that the process by which these benefit an applicant is less systematized than it is for race? Or that racial preferences are too systematized? The other categories you mention are likely to be diverse by default---colleges already have a pretty good distribution of short and tall people, and the hand dominance distribution is also pretty representative. There aren't any mechanisms that impede the society-wide distribution of these traits from replicating itself in the student body.

flippinburgers 7y ago

Because clearly Asians are at fault.

gnicholas 7y ago

> the justification is that these classes are/have been historically discriminated against and constitutional admissions which take race into consideration are a temporary measure to right these historical wrongs by leveling the playing field. This is actually incorrect. The only rationale SCOTUS has ever accepted for affirmative action is to create diverse student bodies. They have never accepted past discrimination as a rationale. For what it's worth, I'm a (former) lawyer. But you don't have to take my word for it! See https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/539/306/#tab-opinion-1961291 https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/539/306/#tab-opi...

thaumasiotes 7y ago

> Every time the SCOTUS hears one of these cases they acknowledge that, but the justification is that these classes are/have been historically discriminated against and constitutional admissions which take race into consideration are a temporary measure to right these historical wrongs by leveling the playing field. Actually, SCOTUS specifically identified this motivation ("right these historical wrongs") as improper and affirmative action programs premised on it are illegal. That is why affirmative action programs instead talk about "diversity" -- SCOTUS blessed "diversity" as an exercise of judgment by the school that would allow otherwise impermissible race-based admission.

throwaway_law 7y ago
No, that is wrong, the Justices are very clear about the historical context of these programs. Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003) (link: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/539/306/ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/539/306/) >The requirement that all race-conscious admissions programs have a termination point "assure[s] all citizens that the deviation from the norm of equal treatment of all racial and ethnic groups is a temporary matter, a measure taken in the service of the goal of equality itself." Richmond v. J. A. Croson Co., 488 U. S., at 510 If it were about diversity as you claim, rather than righting historical wrongs of inequality, there would be no concept of a termination point of these programs as diversity would be an ongoing concern ad infinitum.