Supreme Court scrutinizes university's use of race in admissions
Attorney Bert Rein (L), speaks to the media while standing with plaintiff Abigail Noel Fisher (R), after the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in her case on October 10, 2012 in Washington, DC.
/ Mark Wilson/Getty ImagesThe Supreme Court today returned to the controversial issue of affirmative action, hearing arguments over the University of Texas at Austin's consideration of race in its admissions program.
The fate of the university's program -- and perhaps the way schools nationwide talk about race -- could rest with moderate Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. The court's four conservatives -- as well as Kennedy -- seemed interested in finding a way to dial back the use of race in college admissions without scuttling the goal of promoting diversity. Some of the most pointed and probing questions came from Kennedy, as well as Chief Justice John Roberts.
Supreme Court takes up affirmative action
If the court decides to overrule the precedent it set in 2003, which allows for a "holistic" approach to racial consideration in college admissions, its political ramifications would run deep. Dozens of high-profile figures and organizations filed amicus briefs in this high-profile case, mostly in favor of affirmative action. Business leaders and former military leaders argued to the Supreme Court that tossing out race-based affirmative action would hurt the training of future military and business leaders.
University of Texas at Austin's admissions program was called into question by Abigail Fisher, a 22-year-old white woman who was rejected from the school in 2008. Fisher filed suit, and her lawyers today argued that the university's consideration of race doesn't meet the standards of a "holistic" approach.
"We're entitled to the equal protection under the laws, and that is what this case has been about from the beginning," Bert Rein, Fisher's lawyer, told reporters after the hearing. While schools have "some interests in diversity," Rein said it should not be "an overriding consideration" in admissions. Race, he said, is "an odious and dangerous classification."
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Wishful thinking huh?
We already have top ranking members representing us in the government and now continue to use our power to empower our race. It's about time the white people realize we have been running it all. Omega Psi Phi, 100 Black Men of America, The Rocks, Inc., National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, African American Studies at The Citadel, and many others. The Panthers control your government, military academies, police, and there is not a thing anyone can do about it.
xX_Panthers_Xx
Your greatest error is in failing to realize that this nations strength is its diversity, and that irrespective of your color, you can only achieve your power through unity.
This great nation of ours has never won any war or achieved any great victory without first struggling together and working together as one people and as one nation.
The blacks, whites, reds, yellows, blues and oranges have never achieved any great victory as a single race. This nations greatest achievements, including the great civil rights struggle, was won by people of goodwill who persisted in fighting the forces of evil and injustice.
They came in all colors. Anything short of that spells defeat.
Fact of the matter is that race has so litle to do with the admittance score for UT, it isn't even funny.
This young lady did not come close to admittance to the college on academic scores...... Not close.
All the 2003 finding was that Race may be used as one of many environmental or status criteria....but cannot be a major factor in selection.
That's it.
Like most knee-jerk issues, the rational middle of spectrum position is excoriated by the extremes. Like statements: "You are either for Afirmative Action or are against." As if your parents going there or whether the football team wants you or you have a special talent or you are the son/daughter of an alumni never skewed University selections for admission. So keep posting all these ignorant generalizations that don't represent the facts of this case.
Seems like the SCOTUS justices do the same.
What stuck me was justice Sotormeyer's comment that she wouldn't have gotten into Princeton without AA. Unbeleivable does she believe that she is some chosen one....it's like bush jr. Admitting that he got C's @ Yale and still be became the President,
...very troubled.
Consider a scale, which, because of a history of discrimination, has so many assets shifted to one side that the scale itself is in danger of tipping over and shattering. There is a need to bring the scale into balance, or risk the collapse of the system. The scale cannot be nailed down at the base, so anchoring it in place cannot be done.
Assuming that even baggers might not want to deal with the total anarchy of a collapsed system, does any one of their number have a way to bring the scale back into balance WITHOUT shifting some of the assets to the other side?
Any takers?
Your analogy is brilliant, quite simple, and very easy for anyone to relate to. I'm anxious to see if you get a challenging response.
If you would come to this realization, and realize that if you opted to dedicate yourselves to attending historically Black institutions, you would thus empower them to garner millions through the sell of sponsorships. You would empower them to hire the most qualified and best of professors. You would empower them to expand their campuses. You would empower them to hold the reins of "decisionmaking" that could readily provide your children with the opportunities so often denied them today, under the guise of "illegal affirmative action."
Affirmative action need not be an issue. Read and study about the National League of Colored Baseball players who established themselves as a powerhouse. They were not admitted into regular baseball because people cared about them, nor were they admitted because it was the right thing to do. They were admitted because they established themselves as a moneymaking tool and others sought them because of their ability to draw the crowds.
What we need is a Black athlete, i.e. first round draft pick to be the Rosa Parks for Black colleges and universities that asks other equally talented and recruited Black athletes to take a firm stand and make a firm commitment to attend and support a historically Black educational institution. It only takes one. A tall oak tree begins as an acorn.
You need not begg these so called "elite" institutions to prohibit discrimination. You need not beg them to provide your children with equal opportunities. You have enough Beounces and Jay-Zees and Oprah Winfreys and Tyler Perrys and Puf Daddys and Rapping Nellies and this list ges on, to stand up for your children and stand firm.
Realize that people may discriminate, but God does not. He may not have given Africa ample wheat supplies, but he compensated by giving them diamonds to trade for that wheat. He may not have given the middle east wheat and other food staples, but he compensated by giving them fuel, one of our major necessities.
Let this court as well as these institutions argue against what is right under the Law of God, but then utilize the talents that God gave you and leave that debate in the wind. You don't need permission. You only need "realization" of the power that lies within you.
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, but 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.
Laws have consequences.
The firm I work for has major corporations for clients.
Many corps took jobs offshore and use H1 foreign visa "professionals" to avoid hiring Americans.
Just one example why: Major businesses, particularly those with U.S. Government contracts, are required BY LAW to report head counts of employees against region and US percentages ... or else lose their contracts.
It's easier to set up an offshore subsidiary and hire locals there, as well as to bring in H1 visa professional to do work in the US under "statement of work" agreements.
Thank the politicians'