Supreme Court takes up affirmative action
Affirmative action is rarely discussed on the campaign trail, but it nevertheless is a matter of heated debate in Washington this year.
The Supreme Court today will hear an hour of arguments in the case of Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, which asks the court to rule on whether the university's consideration of race in admissions is constitutional. Abigail Fisher, a 22-year-old white woman who was rejected from UT Austin in 2008, has filed suit against the school, arguing its consideration of race doesn't meet standards previously set by the high court. If the court rules against the university, it could potentially change the way schools across the nation talk about race.
The response to Fisher's case proves that while affirmative action has been a matter of debate for decades, it remains a potent one. Dozens of individuals and organizations have given their input to the Supreme Court through amicus briefs -- 17 briefs filed to support Fisher and 73 in support of the university.
Republican Rep. Allen West, Ronald Reagan's attorney general Ed Meese and the libertarian Cato Institute all signed onto briefs backing Fisher. On the other side, the court is hearing from the likes of Democratic Senate leaders Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer, Teach for America and the American Psychological Association. Dozens of organizations in favor of the school's system plan on holding a rally outside of the Supreme Court today.
Supreme Court takes up affirmative action
The Supreme Court set a precedent for the use of affirmative action in college admissions in 2003, when in Grutter v. Bollinger it rejected the use of racial quotas but said that schools could consider race as part of a "holistic" review of a student's application. In 2003, however, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was the swing vote in favor of the "holistic" approach. This year, the court's balance is tipped towards conservatives.
In the arguments submitted to the court, Fisher's lawyers argue that UT Austin's admissions process fails to meet the standards set by Grutter. If the Supreme Court concludes that the university's system does meet the standards set by Grutter, then Fisher's lawyers argue that the precedent should be clarified or overruled.
CUNY School of Law Prof. Ruthann Robson, who has followed Fisher at the Constitutional Law Prof Blog, told CBSNews.com that overruling Grutter would be a drastic move, politically speaking. By picking apart UT Austin's system, however, the court "could eviscerate Grutter without overruling it," she said.
If the court gave a critical ruling against UT Austin's system -- which already strives to consider race as a part of the "holistic" picture -- other schools would be hard pressed to defend their own consideration of race. Abigail Fisher wants college admissions to be "completely race neutral and race blind," Robson explained.
The University of Texas argues that a diverse student body is an indispensable part of training future leaders with "invaluable educational benefits." It argues that its admissions process meets the standards the court set in Grutter and other cases.
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People have made the argument that it is wrong and hasn't been effective, however there are more educated underrepresented minorities now than ever before, and the effects of that have been seen in all aspects of society from social integration, to assimilation, to innovation, to leadership within our government, changes to our foreign policies, advances in humanitarian efforts, and a more advanced egalitarian pluralism in many areas of the U.S. that have traditionally been plagued with hypodescent status thinking, oppression, and racial inequality.
The issue is not as simple as the ethics behind why an average non-competitive white student was not admitted to UT because of her race. It is simple for people with simple thinking, who cannot critically reason and use some rationale for the other considerations in university policies. When my mother attended BYU as a teen she had to endure an incredible amount of discrimination, despite being a competitive student. Throughout her career with USGS she dealt with being referred to as a token employee because of her race and gender. The truth is, people will make judgments about issues using outdated logic based on attribution errors that are rooted in their own bias and disdain for people who are not the same color they are.
When you remove those constraints and argue the merits of holistic admissions approaches, and you rationalize those against the potential implications for how it will shape and change our society, then you can comprehend the absolute necessity and importance of those policies. That takes a lot more thinking than the standard basic simpleton reasoning I've heard from conservatives and secret racists on this message board.
One final point I have to make is this. I would much rather have educated university administration and professors making admissions decisions than uneducated web surfers who cannot support an argument with anything but conjecture. The people who design and implement these policies at schools and who ultimately decide which candidates get in are the best thinkers and academics in the world. I would take their judgment over any average student who didn't get admitted to UT because she thinks her race was the determining factor.
The term "affirmative action" was first used in the United States in Executive Order 10925 and was signed by President John F. Kennedy on 6 March 1961; it was used to promote actions that achieve non-discrimination. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson enacted Executive Order 11246 which required government employers to take "affirmative action" to hire without regard to race, religion and national origin. In 1968, gender was added to the anti-discrimination list. Comparable procedures in other countries are also known as reservation in India, positive discrimination in the United Kingdom, and employment equity in Canada.
PURPOSE
Affirmative action is intended to promote equal opportunity. It is often instituted in government and educational settings to ensure that minority groups within a society are included in all programs. The justification for affirmative action is that it helps to compensate for past discrimination, persecution or exploitation by the ruling class of a culture, and to address existing discrimination. The implementation of affirmative action, especially in the United States, is considered by its proponents to be justified by disparate impact.
Impact
It is notable that affirmative action was not extended to women until Executive Order 11375 amended Executive Order 11246 on 13 October 1967, expanding the definition to include "sex." Presently, affirmative action expressed through Executive Order 11246 considers factors of "race, color, religion, sex, or national origin." In the U.S., affirmative action's original purpose was to pressure institutions into compliance with the nondiscrimination mandate of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
Affirmative action has been the subject of numerous court cases, and has been questioned upon its constitutional legitimacy. In 2003, a Supreme Court decision (Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 US 244 - Supreme Court 2003) regarding affirmative action in higher education permitted educational institutions to consider race as a factor; a small plus factor, when admitting students, but ruled that strict point systems are unconstitutional. Alternatively, some colleges use financial criteria to attract racial groups that have typically been under-represented and typically have lower living conditions. Some states such as California (California Civil Rights Initiative), Michigan (Michigan Civil Rights Initiative), and Washington (Initiative 200) have passed constitutional amendments banning affirmative action within their respective states. Conservative activists have alleged that colleges quietly use illegal quotas and have launched numerous lawsuits to stop them.
The real truth is that "affirmative action," is a gross misnomer.
It gives critics something they can legitamitely criticize. The real problem is the systemic institutionalized "preferential treatment," that is based on race, that has been and continues to permeate the very fabric of this nation and primarily and routinely exclude nonwhites from receiving equitable treatment and fair consideration for available opportunities and other resources including housing and education.
The institutionalization of these "exclusive practices that were supported by policie put in place for enforcement, is the result of a prolonged perpetuation of stereotypes and prejudices that became normalized throughout America. They were embraced, supported, and enforced by this nation's legal system.
While it is relatively easy to argue the legality of affirmative action in principle, especially in a court of law, it is practically impossible to argue against such institutionalization, because it is immeasurable in that it is the result of subjective decisionmaking and thought processes.
When you have hired "4" blacks, but it is all but impossible to argue, from the legal standpoint, that you "could have hired" an equal number of blacks but simply did not, when the decision was based on subjectivity and not objectivity, i.e. test scores or other physical data. It is all but impossible to argue that a particular decision was affected by the existence of personal prejudices, and systemic beliefs, in the absence of objective and or physical discriminators. Subjectivity is what it is, subjectivity,d and subjectivity is based on personal preferences.
Institutions in this nation elect to include a subjective evaluation as part of their evaluation process in addition to any objective requirements, i.e. test scores, as a means to retain the "final say" in the selection process that will inevitably be based on their "preferences." Unfortunately, and all too often, that "final say," resorts back to the usual practice of exclusion.
The purpose of "affirmation action," was to establish a means of countering that practice, bu again, because of its gross misnomer, it gives critics a legitimate means to protest it. The misnomer readily makes what was intended to be impartiality as it relates to this practice of exclusion of nonwhites, illegal.
The courts may find it difficult to defend this misnomer, but its "spirit," that of terminating the prolonged practice of "exclusion" of nonwites, is an end that more than justifies the means.
If that was not changed, our society would not have undergone its recent advancements and progressed to becoming more diverse, tolerant, assimilated, and innovative. We didn't even stop mistreating blacks in the south until the 50's and 60's. That was recent history. Policies that favor the ruling class would never have changed in education without affirmative action. It was about as necessary as the civil rights movement. Without either, there is absolutely no doubt white dominance would not have changed, abject oppression would not have changed.
South Africa is a perfect example, prior to the 94 downfall of the white-dominated system, nothing changed since fourfold legalized segregation in 1948.
Your first paragraph describes exactly the state of the U.S. education system prior to affirmative action, but in reverse because it only favored whites.
If the current system reverted back to the old practices, as a country we'd be in much worse shape in the future than we are today. Poverty, productivity, innovation, exchange of culture and ideas, and oppression would all decline dramatically.
Today, like I mentioned in an earlier post, underrepresented minorities account for only 10-14% of grad program students at elite schools. Of that, less than 2% are Native American. The single most overrepresented group in academia are white males.
For the tiny percentage of a difference that has occurred over the past 40 years, it still amazes me that the dominant class wants the supreme court to save them from a system that inherently and systematically still favors the dominant white class. If exclusion of nonwhites was a problem, statistically it would be dramatically apparent, but white males and white females have more than adequate opportunity and representation in education.
No stats support the argument that the admissions policies being holistic still do not favor whites. Whites dominate essentially ever segment of academia. LOL @ "misnomer".
I think you need to review for clarification the definition of "misnomer." You also need to review my commentary. You and I are 100% in agreement, but in your misunderstanding, you intepreted me to be in disagreement with affirmative action.
"Affirmative action," is today being defined as "preferential treatment." Based on that definition, affirmative action can legally be argued as being against unconstitutional because it is based on disparate or "preferential" treatment of one group over another. Since it is inappropriately termed, it is a "misnomer" that gives critics something to legally protest.
The end result of a more equitable admissions process is both just and constitutional. That, in and of itself, would be inarguable if an appropriate term, other than "affirmative action," were used.