Will the Supreme Court End Affirmative Action with Fisher v U of Texas?

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case on affirmative action and it is quite possible that this case may result in and end to racial preferences.

Why? For one thing, Kagan has recused herself from this case.

Even more importantly, Sandra Day O' Connor has been replaced with Samuel Alito since the court last issued a decision on affirmative action.

Thus we have Thomas, Alito, Scalia, and Roberts who will all likely vote to end affirmative action altogether. Kennedy, on the other hand, is the swing vote. He is no fan of affirmative action, but has acknowledged the benefit of diversity in theory and so might vote to maintain affirmative action as a theoretical possibility, but nevertheless might impose so many restrictions as to render it effectively dead.

I'd say the best that supporters of affirmative action can hope for is that the court will focus on the narrow particularities of the Texas case and avoid making a sweeping decision.

This, combined with the case regarding ObamaCare, should make this a very interesting and significant year at the Supreme Court.

I love the quote by Chief Justice Roberts, and I couldn't agree more.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

I think this is where they will end up, not totally disallowing any form of AA, but by reducing the allowable scope.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

I don't think they should remove the practice as yet for there are serious problems with the disparity of the divercity of students that attend schools still today.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Then fix the reasons for the disparity, but don't do it by discriminating against others based on their race.

 

That's hard to accomplish when only white men run most institutions who don't want to diversify but only promote who they want to see climb the ladder of sucess. Bigotry still exists everywhere, it is just hidden more so now, so trying to go back to what was the rule isn't going to be benifical to everyone.

 

Gee, and here I thought the leader of the largest institution in the Country, was run by a Black man?

And he got there by being elected by White people.

Who apparently aren't against diversity as much as you claim.

my bad.

 

Affirmative action is a form of discrimination since decisions are based on race and not on individual cause and effect. I can see the owners of slaves liable to the slave since there is cause and effect. It starts to become less than cause and effect when the decedents of one side has to pay the descendants of the other. But it really gets irrational when people, who have proof they never did anything wrong, are lumped together simply due to skin color.

It is like saying Mr Smith stole my wallet, therefore anyone named Smith is liable even if they were not in the country at the time. Liberal logic is poor and seems more like a con job angle.

There is a good compromise for affirmative action. Instead of basing affirmative action on an irrational stereo-type, we base it on free choice. As such, only the democratic whites are the chopping block. They promote this and therefore should put their money where their mouth is. There is no discrimination this way, but a moral choice based on preference leading to a solution they believe. The republicans can use, the same set of rules for all, approach.

In my experience, liberals like to accept credit but prefer to have someone else pay the tab, for their pretend generosity. Below is how the game works.

As an example, neighbor 1 asks neighbor 2, if it is OK for neighbor 1 to have a party. Neighbor 2 says OK since the party is lawful. Next, neighbor 1, tries to shake him down to pay for the party, so neighbor 1 can get all the credit. Neighbor 2 says I don't mind if you have your party, but I don't wish to pay for your party. Then neighbor 1 says, neighbor 2 is a bigot.

Neighbor 1 wants to accept credit but wants neighbor 2 to pay. If he does not pay, he is a bigot. The solution is if you wish credit you have to pay for your own party. Democratic whites can accept all the credit, but they need to pay the tab by putting their money where their mouth is. Ask for volunteers first. You can get the result, without discrimination, all based on choice backed with action.

 

Myopia and Superficiality

I'm pretty sure you've made that point before, and the problem still is that it's superficial.

Steven Brust wrote, allegorically, of the deeper question:

Walking through the filth in the streets made me want to retch, but I hid it. Anyway, we all know Easterners are filthy, right? Look at how they live. Never mind that they can't use sorcery to keep their neighborhoods clean the way Dragaerans do. If they want to use sorcery, they can become citizens of the Empire by moving into the country and becoming Teckla, or buying titles in the Jhereg. Don't want to be serfs? They're stubborn, too, aren't they? Don't have the money to buy titles? Of course not! Who'd give them a good job, seeing how filthy they are?

(Yendi)​

This is the reason your argument is superficial; it is also the reason I say the argument is racist. The problem is that such a "solution" would place the burdens of past injustice on the victims in order to excuse the beneficiaries.

To wit:

Walking through the ghetto made me want to retch, but I hid it. Anyway, we all know how minorities are filthy, right? Look at how they live. Never mind that they don't have the modern amenities that contribute to success. If they want the amenities contributing to success, they can be successful. They don't think it's fair to always have to start two steps behind everyone else, and thus always have to run faster? They're stubborn, too, aren't they? They don't have the money to get those amenities and education? Of course not! Who would give them a good job, seeing how badly they live?​

A practical example can be said to start with the drug war. At a time when sixty-five percent of crack users were white, the federal crack statute saw an overwhelming disproportion in prosecutions, with well over ninety percent of defendants being black and well under one percent being white. One result of this is a third of black males, statistically speaking, were in the correctional system before they were thirty. And that, of course, is from those who didn't die or go to prison by their eighteenth birthday.

The clearly racist Tulia incident is only thirteen years old. Should we pretend that its effects ended the day the last of the unjustly convicted defendants was released from jail? That is, do you really believe there were or are no further effects of having devastated a town that way? Do you think the children temporarily orphaned by the corrupt drug sting and subsequent convictions based on no evidence whatsoever save a white sheriff with a history of corruption, racism, and drug abuse, stopped suffering the effects of what happened to them just because mom and dad finally got out of prison?

As our society claws its way out of the unjust hole it dug with racist picks and spades, things aren't going to get any better if we simply say, "Oh, well, racism is over because I say so, and that means the people born into the disadvantages of prior injustice only fail to catch up because they're lazy or inferior human beings."

Now, you can pretend all you want that poor minorities can only demonstrate their equality by doing more than the average person must in order to overcome challenges the average person does not, and I see no reason why you would change your longstanding outlook now. However, it's still a perspective that, in its best light, we might describe as myopic.
____________________

Notes:

Brust, Steven. Yendi. New York: Ace, 1984.

 

No it's not.
In fact it's quite the opposite.

Except you can't determine that an INDIVIDUAL was a beneficiary based on the color of their skin.

Which is why it is wrong to presume so by using color based discrimination.

As to correcting the "burdens of past injustice", of course, but you deal with the actual issues, like quality of the school systems, financial aid etc.

There is no logical reason to perpetuate racial discrimination and say it's a good thing.

 

An individual overcoming known racial barriers to their achievements should get credit for that, no?

A black kid from East St Louis who scores pretty high on the SATs is more likely to be worthy of college admission than a white kid from a Connecticut with slightly higher SAT scores, don't you think?

 

Quite the contrary, actually:

American Indian, African American, and Hispanic students are overpredicted by all measures and
combination of measures. African American students’ FYGPA tends to be the most overpredicted with
mean standardized residuals ranging from -0.32 to -0.17.​

http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/Differential_Validity_Summary_keyfindings.pdf

 

Reality and Fantasy

I'm referring to reality, sir, not your fantasy.

Or perhaps you would like to explain how the most simplistic abstraction possible is the opposite of superficial?

Except that to a certain degree, all white people in the United States are beneficiaries of racism, even if they didn't try to be, or don't want to be.

You need to remember that individuals are part of a society. If the only thing in this consideration is the individual, then there really isn't any point to having a society.

Well, some of us have discussed this before. As I wrote two and a half years ago:

Imagine you are a metropolitan schools superintendent. Part of your job is to spend money to provide students at various schools equal education and resources. So the first thing you try is sending the same amount of money per student to each of the schools. This doesn't work, though, because there is a difference between the schools up on the hill where the more affluent—mostly white—students attend and the schools in the city where less affluent—mostly minority—students attend. Down in the city, there is a higher crime rate, so of that per student cost, X goes to campus security. Up on the hill, that number is Y. The reality is that X>Y, with the result that less is available to pay teachers and provide resources in the city than up on the hill. So then you decide, Okay, we're going to separate security costs, and spend the same amount per student on teachers and resources. Two problems emerge. First, you're still attracting lesser teachers to the city schools because they have fewer resources to work with. Even in spending the same amount for resources, the schools on the hill already have a better, more secure resource infrastructure. For instance, the affluent schools have a good network in place, while the city schools have fewer, slower, less powerful computers and a shoddy network. But you can't yet take time to deal with that, because someone is suing you: You have spent unequally per student on the city schools. Lawyers, outraged parents, and community advocates accuse you of racism because you're spending more where minority students attend than on students at the affluent, mostly white schools. So you send out your lawyers, spend a shitload of money, and beat down the lawsuit. By this time, test results are coming in, and there is still a problem. Some take the David Duke approach and say this is evidence of minority students being inferior, or simply not applying themselves as well as white students. You can't concede that point, because, well, you're the superintendent and you'll be run out of town if you explain that minority students are simply inferior. What you need, you decide, is money to equalize the school infrastructures in order to provide students equal opportunities and attract better teachers. But voters are already weary of government, and you have to fight, claw, and beg voters to approve the bond measure. And it passes by a hairsbreadth. Guess what? You're about to be sued again, because you're spending money on infrastructure at the minority-populated schools that you're not spending at the white-populated schools. So you take some of the bond money and spend it on infrastructure improvements at the white schools. Only, now you've improved the white schools beyond the equalizing line you set to catch the minority schools up to. On the one hand, at what point do you just say, "Fuck it, I resign." To the other, you still haven't fixed the problem because the new advantages at the affluent, white-populated schools perpetuate the disparity in the results.

Round about and round about and round and round and round about. And round about and round about it goes. By the end of your career, people are saying, "It's been twenty years, and the lazy minorities can't make the best of the advantages you've handed them. Why are you penalizing white people, you racist?"

But ... and here's the kick in the sac: You still haven't fixed the problem. At this point, you're hip deep at least in something I mentioned earlier: One of the problems with the merit argument put forward by some conservatives is that it would extend and possibly even reinforce disparities coinciding with racial and ethnic lines over the course of two or three generations.

And, just to bring the point 'round to the original issue, which of the arguments you would face are liberal, and which are conservative?

What you're dealing with is a problem that transcends a single generation. As with the firefighters in particular, so with communities in general: When minority communities recover enough from the effects of past discrimination that they are equally represented in diverse aspects of society, so that the affluent communities aren't so predominately white, and minority races and ethnicities have a generational foundation to rely on, then you can say, "No more. We've done all we justly can. You must necessarily stand on your own two feet now. We can no longer in good conscience continue to play at compensating for perceived differences."

This is the problem liberals see. The conservative response is to sacrifice the general for the sake of the particular. So a school on the hill doesn't get the same raw number of dollars for infrastructure upgrades. Tough shit; that's not the point. The point is to achieve a level playing field before leveling the playing field. If you draw the line today and say, "Everybody ... go!" you're going to perpetuate the disparities that are the direct result of past injustice. Have we achieved equality, or have we achieved something and decided to call it equality? Yet almost everyone agrees that equality is the last thing we might say we've achieved. Liberals see the general inequality and say, "We must do something." Conservatives look at the particular inequalities that occur and say, "It's so horrible!" But the result of favoring the particular over the general is that society will still be caught up in a cycle of inequity.

Lots of people like to boast of their own achievement. "I did it. I worked hard. I didn't need the state to compensate for me." Yes, but many of those worked hard in advantageous endeavors. Because of past injustices, proportionately fewer minorities have the tutoring and extracurricular activities that help students excel. Last year, I was listening to a story on NPR about the state of the family. Normally, I use this example for that, and not this. I mean ... er ... yeah, work with me here. They were talking to parents and children about what the kids are up to, and it was actually kind of horrifying. One nine year-old was explaining her two musical lessons each week, her tutoring sessions for math, her karate lessons ... the horrifying aspect was that this poor girl would have to pencil in fifteen minutes to do the sort of nothing stuff that kids do, like wander around in the woods or look at the clouds or go jump in the river for the hell of it. And, yes, they talked to minority families as well, but it would be irresponsible to conclude from that small sample that blacks (accounted for, as I recall) and Hispanics (not accounted for, as I recall) are on par with Asians and whites. Proportionately fewer black and Hispanic children have such busy, expensive schedules. Proportionately fewer black and Hispanic children go to computer summer camps and the like. Yes, these white kids are working hard, but in a certain aspect, that's beside the point. When the deprived minority communities achieve equal representation in these endeavors, then you can call off the compensation. If you do it sooner, you will only perpetuate the imbalance.

The sooner we get this part of the recovery over with, the better. I would hope we could agree on that. But I'm not sure, because what you're advocating appears to be calling off the recovery before it is finished.​

And if you'd like to see what a thoughtful response to such considerations is—you know, as opposed to a superficial argument—I would point to Superstring's response from that thread.

It all comes back to a simple question: Why is the solution to discrimination to extend and even exacerbate its effects?

What needs to be measured in any affirmative action question are the reasons, the effects of the policy, and how those relate to both the present situation and future considerations.

Like I said two years ago, the sooner get this part of the societal recovery over with, the better. And, just as I felt two years ago, I still believe that the solution is not to call off the recovery before it's finished.

I do recognize that some people disagree, but a superficial because-you-say-so argument isn't much of a peg to hang your merit on.

 

For what it's worth, it's inconceivable that the Supreme Court will "end affirmative action." They are not going to say, for example, that one can never ever under any circumstances take race into account. That would be to say that if the government were making a educational film about, say, the Tuskeegee airmen, they could not purposefully seek to cast black actors in the relevant roles.

What they will say is what they have always said, that a race-based criterion must satisfy "strict scrutiny" and that restriction at issue in this case does not. In other words, the reason for the restriction must be compelling, and the restriction itself must be both narrowly tailored and the least restrictive way of satisfying the compelling interest.

It is possible that the Court could rule that, for example, "diversity" is not an compelling state interest...but it would be hard to imagine Kennedy agreeing that it can never be (he'd basically have to reverse himself). So they'd not be likely to get a majority on that point.

There is no doubt that this decision will make racial criteria used in higher education harder to justify.

It does continue the great Supreme Court tradition of hearing a surprisingly higher percentage of "reverse discrimination" cases relative to the number of discrimination cases filed. If you looked at the Supreme Court's docket, you'd think discrimination was a problem that only plagues white people.

 

And no one is suggesting that the solution to discrimination is to to extend and exacerbate its effects.

You can actually deal with the ISSUES directly and you can do so by not perpetuating discrimination.

The courts will continue to make that clear.

 

But we are discussing colleges and universities aren't we, not a public nominated figure. I guess you can't see the differences in the two or else you wouldn't have even stated that. The Presidents and other officals at colleges are not voted into their offices by the students but rather appointed by a group of administrators to do the job of running the school to their standards and the governments goals. If you would look around the country and see that the majority, over 90 percent of colleges , are run by white men, then you'd see that "divercity" hasn't reached everywhere yet. I guess you don't view reality as much as others do.

"Institutional discrimination is much more subtle than the old type of discrimination associated with intentional individual racist practices. It is manifested when the actions, policies or rules ofan institution have a disproportionately negative impact on those Americans with the least amount of economic or political power."

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...epX2wpOUeV3kbVj6g&sig2=rMAiWBHOwU2kUDoxyg9wzQ

Most elite universities seem to have little interest in diversifying their student bodies when it comes to the numbers of born-again Christians from the Bible belt, students from Appalachia and other rural and small-town areas, people who have served in the U.S. military, those who have grown up on farms or ranches, Mormons, Pentecostals, Jehovah's Witnesses, lower-middle-class Catholics, working class "white ethnics," social and political conservatives, wheelchair users, married students, married students with children, or older students first starting out in college after raising children or spending several years in the workforce. Students in these categories are often very rare at the more competitive colleges, especially the Ivy League. While these kinds of people would surely add to the diverse viewpoints and life-experiences represented on college campuses, in practice "diversity" on campus is largely a code word for the presence of a substantial proportion of those in the "underrepresented" racial minority groups.

Military veterans and aspiring military officers, like poor whites and future American farmers, are clearly not what most competitive private colleges have in mind when they speak of the need for "diversity". If nothing else the new Espenshade/Radford study helps to document what knowledgeable observers have long known: "diversity" at competitive colleges today involves a politically engineered stew of different groups. drawn from the ingredients selected by reigning campus ideology. Since that ideology is mainly dictated by the Left, it is no surprise that the diversity achieved is what the larger American landscape looks like when it is viewed through a leftist lens. I suggest a different approach: elite colleges should get out of the diversity business altogether and focus on enrolling students who are the most academically talented and the most eager to learn. These students should make up the bulk of their entering classes. Call it the Cal Tech Model since the California Institute of Technology seems to be the only elite institution that comes close to realizing such an ideal. Or call it the U.S. Olympic Team Model, or the Major League All-Stars Model, since it is based on the same strict merit-selection principle governing our Olympic sports teams and our major league baseball all-star teams. Let the diversity chips fall where they may and focus on recruiting the most intelligent, most creative, and most energetic of the rising generation of young people. In my naive way this is what I always thought elite universities were supposed to be about.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...9SKJeRrh-fHL1hx8Q&sig2=3kV62gefM1nnbTKzi0csOA

 

I can see the difference, in that White people overwhelmingly voted for someone who was not their race to be their President.
Seems that says quite a lot about the actual level of prejudice in the country.

Actually that's no big surprise since only 12% of the country is Black.

 

And 50 percent are women and 35 percent are Latino, so where are they?:shrug:

 

NO, only 16% of the country is Hispanic or Latino, but then again, Latinos represent ~80% of the ~15 million illegal aliens in the country, which does limit their job choices somewhat.

As for women, there are more women in University then there are men, by a decent margin.

More women then men are getting bachelor and higher degrees as well.

http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-201_162-20057608.html

 

While you are correct I still find that 90 percent of colleges and universities are run by white males not very diverse if you ask me.