Affirmative Action Case- Split Decision

[Conskeeted7]

Was anyone else a little disappointed at the lack of television news coverage to the rally that was held outside the Supreme Court? My brother was there and said that it was a great feeling to be part of history like that. However, none of our morning shows felt it was important enough to share. I was quite disturbed to find Good Morning America talking to Britney Spears, or some other teenie bopper, when something as monumental as the Affirmative Action rally was going on.

[Steeltrap]

Originally posted by Conskeeted7
Was anyone else a little disappointed at the lack of television news coverage to the rally that was held outside the Supreme Court? My brother was there and said that it was a great feeling to be part of history like that. However, none of our morning shows felt it was important enough to share. I was quite disturbed to find Good Morning America talking to Britney Spears, or some other teenie bopper, when something as monumental as the Affirmative Action rally was going on.

I feel your disturbance, but remember that the morning shows, at core, are kind of fluffy, hybrids of news and entertainment. Because of that, I suspect that they feel that the subject was perhaps too controversial.

That's too bad, especially in view of corporate America and the military coming out with friend-of-the-court briefs in favor of the University of Michigan's stand. I mean, how much more mainstream can you get, people?

[RedefinedDiva]

Court Limits Race As Factor in Admissions
6 minutes ago Add Top Stories - AP to My Yahoo!


By ANNE GEARAN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - In two split decisions, the Supreme Court on Monday ruled that minority applicants may be given an edge when applying for admissions to universities, but limited how much a factor race can play in the selection of students.


The high court struck down a point system used by the University of Michigan, but did not go as far as opponents of affirmative action had wanted. The court approved a separate program used at the University of Michigan law school that gives race less prominence in the admissions decision-making process.


The court divided in both cases. It upheld the law school program that sought a "critical mass" of minorities by a 5-4 vote, with Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (news - web sites) siding with the court's more liberal justices to decide the case.


The court split 6-3 in finding the undergraduate program unconstitutional. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote the majority opinion in the undergraduate case, joined by O'Connor and Justices Antonin Scalia (news - web sites), Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas (news - web sites) and Stephen Breyer (news - web sites).


Justices John Paul Stevens (news - web sites), David Souter (news - web sites) and Ruth Bader Ginsburg (news - web sites) dissented.


Michigan's undergraduate admissions structure is tantamount to a quota, the majority in that case concluded. While it set no fixed target for the number of minority students who should get in, the point-based evaluation system gave minority applicants a 20-point boost.


Government has a compelling interest in promoting racial diversity on campus, but the undergraduate school's admissions policy is not the way to get there, the court majority said.


The ruling affects tax-supported schools, and by extension private schools and other institutions, that have looked for ways to boost minority enrollment without violating the Constitution's guarantee against discrimination.


The University of Michigan cases are the most significant test of affirmative action to reach the court in a generation. At issue was whether racial preference programs unconstitutionally discriminate against white students.


The rulings follow the path the court set a generation ago, when it outlawed quotas but still left room for schools to improve the odds for minority applicants.


The two Michigan cases directly address only admissions at public, tax-supported institutions. But the court's rationale is expected to have a wide ripple through private colleges and universities, other government decision-making and the business world.


Opponents of affirmative action had hoped the Supreme Court would use this opportunity to ban most consideration of race in any government decisions. The court is far more conservative than in 1978, when it last ruled on affirmative action in higher education admissions, and the justices have put heavy conditions on government affirmative action in other arenas over the past decade.


Defending its general approach to affirmative action, the university has said that having what it calls a critical mass of minority students benefits the whole student body. Minorities must be present in more than token numbers to ensure all students can interact, the university has said.


Michigan insists that it accepts only academically qualified students, no matter what their race.


Michigan's undergraduate school used a 150-point index to screen applicants. The 20 points awarded to minorities was more than the school awarded for some measures of academic excellence, writing ability or leadership skills. Outstanding athletes also got 20 points, as did impoverished applicants.


The school has also "flagged" minority applications, making it easier to keep an applicant in the pool even if he or she flunked an initial review.


In 1997, the year that two white students sued, the school had 13,500 applicants and selected 3,958 of them as freshmen.


The white plaintiffs, Jennifer Gratz and Patrick Hamacher, were Michigan residents with good grades and other qualifications when they were rejected at the flagship Ann Arbor campus. Both have since graduated from other colleges.

The Bush administration sided with the students, but did not call for an outright end to affirmative action.

The students were supported by a range of conservative legal groups, some law professors and affirmative action opponents.

The university's law school program uses a separate, less structured system to promote minority enrollment.

The law school case is Grutter v. Bollinger, 02-241; the undergraduate case is Gratz v. Bollinger, 02-516.

___

By ANNE GEARAN

Associated Press Writer

[CrimsonTide4]

Minority Enrollment Drops Semester After High Court Ruling
By Nzingha Thompson-Bahauddeen, Special to BET.com

Posted February 10, 2004 – Seven months ago, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the University of Michigan’s affirmative action policy, supporters feared that there would be a major decrease in minority students.

Those fears became true this fall.

University of Michigan records show that the number of Blacks, Latinos and Native Americans applying for admission at the beginning of this school year, is 23 percent less than the number who applied last year.


Dr. Robert Ethridge, former head of the American Association for Affirmative Action, says that the low numbers suggest that students of color are “reacting to the decision at the undergraduate level,” and are probably heading to other institutions they feel are more welcoming.

“Individuals become gun-shy, and rather than taking a chance, they apply somewhere else,” said Ethridge, vice president for Equal Opportunity Programs at Emory University in Atlanta. “Undergrad-level minorities students may say, ‘I am not going to be as competitive based on competition.’”

University officials say it is still early, and thousands of more applicants will be reviewed in a procedure that will end in early April. Feb. 1 was the application deadline.

So far, the total number of applicants admitted, is about 8,600; this is down 1 percent, from last year. The university says it will likely accept 12,000 to 13,000 applicants.

The Bush administration drew wide criticism last year when it filed a friend-of-the-court brief denouncing the university’s affirmative action policy on Martin Luther King’s birthday. The policy amounted to no more than a quota, the administration contended. The university had said the policy was necessary to acquire a “critical mass” of minority students.

Roughly five months later, the U.S. Supreme court ruled that Michigan’s undergraduate affirmative action program was unconstitutional because the policy gave applicants a certain amount of points based on race. But, in a blow to the Bush administration, the Supreme Court upheld the law school’s right to use race as a criterion in admissions, saying that the application was more vague.

The new University of Michigan undergraduate application does not award points based on race and added a short answer, and an optional essay section. The applications were not available until a month later, due to the changes.

Admissions Director Ted Spencer suggested that, because of the controversy over the affirmative action policy, minority applicants might be uncomfortable with the environment at the University.

“The residual kinds of impact of all this discussion and dialogue, particularly from the other side of this issue, that diversity is bad, it makes a lot of students think, ‘Well maybe I don’t want to be put into that sort of environment,’” Spencer told The Associated Press.

[Steeltrap]

This happened in California after Prop. 209, too. Basically, there's a sprinkling of AfAm students at what are considered the top UC schools, including Berkeley, UCLA and UCSD.

[Honeykiss1974]

US court denies white students' discrimination case
Mon Oct 3, 2005 11:53 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court let stand on Monday a ruling that three unsuccessful white applicants cannot collect any damages from their lawsuit challenging the University of Washington Law School's use of race as a factor in admissions.

Without comment or recorded dissent, the justices declined to review a U.S. appeals court ruling that upheld as legal the policy in effect in the mid-1990s when Katuria Smith, Angela Rock and Michael Pyle applied and were rejected.

"The law school's narrowly tailored use of race and ethnicity in admissions decisions during 1994-96 furthered its compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body," the appeals court ruled.

The Supreme Court in a major ruling in 2003 upheld the use of racial preferences in university admission decisions and cited the benefits of a diverse student body. The court upheld the University of Michigan's affirmative action program that favors minorities who apply to its law school.

The appeals court cited the 2003 decision in the case involving the University of Washington law school.

Read the rest here

[luminarysoul]

@ this thread, im doing a policy paper on affirmative action and theres a lot of helpful info in here!!!

[Honeykiss1974]

Originally posted by luminarysoul
@ this thread, im doing a policy paper on affirmative action and theres a lot of helpful info in here!!!

Glad we could help!

[madmax]

Originally posted by Honeykiss1974
Would someone kindly point out to Mr. Bush that if he wants to get involved in something, try:

1. getting out public schools back to a proper level of DECENT education
2. getting our economy out of the crapper
3. getting our economy out of the crapper
4. quit spending ONLY 1/2 of a percent of our taxes on social programs. Increase that mofo!

How was Black America doing before Bush?
Were you driving Bentleys?

[Honeykiss1974]

Originally posted by madmax
How was Black America doing before Bush?
Were you driving Bentleys?

Hey - its my very own paparazzi again.

Please identify where in my post that I stated it applied only to black america?

And I prefer Mercedes, thank you.