As I stated before, giving people points solely because of their race is simply wrong and tantamount to a quota system. At the same time, I stated that “Only the dimmest of bulbs would begin to assert that blacks, in the past, were given a fair shake in our society, and only the equally block-headed would attempt to argue that this has not had profound and long-term effects within black communities,” and thus, acknowledging race inthe admissions process seems to be fair and to make sense. The Supreme Court agrees:
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 Constitution “does not prohibit the law school’s narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body,” Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote.
I will be waiting for an apology for those of you who called Bush a liar when he stated the point system was essentially a quota system. I will also be waiting for the apology from those of you who called people racists for pointing this out.
Moe Lane
Um, you weren’t actually going to wait for the apologies, right?
Moe
God and Country
Another victory for us in a long but slow battle to keep those damned negroes out of our schools. God bless George Bush for taking a stand
John Cole
Wow- an unrepentant, ignorant, lefty troll who thinks that opposition to the Michigan plan makes you opposed to integrated schools. Talk about foolishness.
BTW, anonymous asshole. I called Steve Almera at the San Diego Data Processing Corp., and I am waiting for his response. Post your real name and an apology here, and I won’t tell him who is using company time and assets to make either racist statements or false accusations of racism.
Brandon
Moe’s right. I advise against holding your breath while you wait for apologies.
M. Scott Eiland
Looks like they vagued it up again–at least they smacked down the point system: it would be hard to imagine a system that was more blatantly a quota when the bonus for race was equal to the difference between a straight A and a straight B average. This looks like the old Bakke test, which was also rather vague and led to schools testing the limits until we ended up with atrocities like the Michigan system.
Andrew Lazarus
Wasn’t the Bush Administration also against the Law School admissions process, which the Court (that is, Justice O’Connor) upheld??
[My own views on the admissions processes are rather retrograde considering my general leftist attitude.]
John Cole
Andrew- Yes, the argument being that ‘critical mass’ was the same as a quota, essentially. I didn’t buy that argument, but the undergraduate point system was pretty clearly outrageous.
M. Scott Eiland
I skimmed through the case summaries, and it seems that the court put a lot of weight on the fact that the law school process put a lot of individualized attention to each law school applicant, and that there were cases where non-minority students got in with lower scores than minority students. This argument seems reasonable in the abstract, but I find it hard to forget that the same school that was supervising this procedure had also been perpetrating a system that was a de facto quota system for its undergraduate admissions. To me, this is like telling Tony Soprano that he can’t run the illegal craps game any more, but it’s just fine for him to supervise the bingo game.
“I will be waiting for an apology for those of you who called Bush a liar when he stated the point system was essentially a quota system. I will also be waiting for the apology from those of you who called people racists for pointing this out.”
John, Scalia and Thomas were part of the majority–that guarantees that the usual gang of idiots won’t accept it as legitimate. We’ll see a lot of renewed whining about Bush v. Gore, racist insults of Thomas’ intelligence and jurisprudence, and all kinds of fun before this dies down and they get back to trying to subvert the meaning of the decision.
Steve Malynn
It is really amazing that after 150 pages in two cases, there is still no standard to define an “appropriate affirmatave action” plan. That said, a good win on the indefensable, and a good loss on the undefinable “diversity.”
What is sad regarding “diversity” as a governmental value, is that it is enshrined as a constitutionally important governmental priority. Protecting against unlawful bias or remedying proven bias are now not sufficient governmental goals. The junk social science that gives value to “diversity” can survive scrutiny, but at least the standard is strict scrutiny.
The question is will strick scrutiny really be as onerous a standard for Universities, as it is for other Govt. entities?
John Cole
Jearlynn at Talk Left had this as an update:
“Clarence Thomas voted against affirmative action.”
No kidding- he is as conservative as Scalia- everyone knew how he would vote. I wish they would just come out and call him “Uncle Tom” every time they want to mention him.
Andrew Lazarus
1. As it happens, I also thought the undergraduate system was a bad idea. So did lefty blogger Hesiod. This is a topic where traditional allegiances are breaking down.
2. On the other hand, people who criticized the Bush Administration over this issue can certainly feel justified, since the Court found Bush’s anti-AA position unnecessarily extreme. (I’m not 100% sure who I agree with here. As a POLITICAL matter I think a transition to race-neutral class-based or experience-based AA is better.)
3. Well, it would be nice for Justice Thomas to admit that he benefitted from AA programs that were race-based. Now, that doesn’t mean he has to support such a program, any more than Warren Buffett and I have to tear up our tax refund checks because we don’t agree with the tax cut. What worries me is that in many race cases (Croson comes to mind), the conservative movement has adopted amnesia under the guise of race-neutrality, to the perpetuation of a status quo produced by a race-conscious PRO-WHITE system.
Emperor Misha I
The Constitution “does not prohibit the law school’s narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body,” Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote.I’ll be interested in seeing the scientific studies proving this “compelling interest”. Then I’ll be interested in hearing the Supreme Sluts’ opinion on another situation, in which a school decides that there’s a “compelling interest” in keeping a racially homogenic student body.
Finally, I wasn’t aware that the 14th Amendment specifically allowed for exemptions in order to protect the “compelling interests” in having a “diverse student body”.
Another non-decision from the Supremes, designed NOT to interpret the Constitution, but to lick the asses of everybody, ending up kicking the asses of all.
Sandra Day O’Connor is a mealy-mouthed slut who belongs in a kitchen, barefoot and pregnant. Because as a JUDGE, she has absolutely no redeeming abilities.
John Cole
Don’t hold back, Misha.
Emperor Misha I
Hey, I just calls ’em as I sees ’em, Blogdad.
Although I DO have to apologize to sluts everywhere for comparing them with that bloviating bag of hot air and non-decisions.
Talk about pandering to everybody and helping no-one.
I still can’t wait to see the Supreme Whores’ response if some bigoted ass David Duke wannabe decides to start a school and declares a “compelling interest” in having an all-Aryan student body.
I mean, in the slut’s words, it’s perfectly fine as long as he’s not using a points system, no?
Some victory.
Retire the whole bally lot of ’em. They don’t have enough balls among them to impregnate a mosquito.
JKC
Something not often noted in the Michigan case was the fact that points were also given for being from the rural part of the state and for some other non-race related socio-economic factors. I suspect that’s why the Supremes held up the grad school’s program.
Eye Opener
Misha, et al.
America used to have NO schools for black humans. Then, after a pivotal, horrendous and determining event called “The US Civil War”, America instituted schools for blacks, schools which were “seperate but equal”.
Later, these were found to be ‘seperate, therefore unequal.’
In striving to afford ALL Americans ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’, schools were integrated. Over time, other de facto segregation and inequalities became apparent, including ‘reverse’ racism.
This most-recent effort is notable for, among other things, the minority decision written by Justice Souter, who wrote, “It is hard to see what is inappropriate in assigning some stated value to a relevant characteristic, whether it be reasoning ability, writing style, running speed, or minority race.”
What Souter missed was that the first three are learned, acquired, developable traits and can have points assigned to them. The ‘minority race’ quality is not learnable, nor unlearnable, hence is not appropriate for points assignation.
Despite Misha’s ranting, this isn’t a cut-and-dried reality, nor is this the end of the conversation, legally-speaking.
PG
Bush wasn’t necessarily racist to say that the point system was a quota, just erroneous. The “critical mass,” on the other hand, looks like a quota to me.
People make the mistake of assuming that the policy that bothers them more must be the quota, regardless of how quota-like it actually is.
Souter left out being the relative of an alumnus or being from an underrepresented part of Michigan, both qualities that are “not learnable, nor unlearnable.” Still waiting for all the affirmative action opponents to start opposing those…
John Cole
The point system had the precise effect of a quota system. The % that the law school claimed was “critical mass” seemed to be the same damned thing. Shrug.
PG
How did the point system have the effect of a quota system? Suppose the entire minority pool of applicants to UMich one year was just really terrible — low GPAs, low SATs, everything bad. 20 points was not going to get them to the point of being admitted. So if the point system was actually held to strictly — was NOT flexible, was NOT tailored to individual circumstances — there was nothing quota about it.
John Cole
PG- It was a mathematical equation- that is how they decided you get 20 points, rather than 12 points, or 15 points. 20 points would shift enough minorities over to a place where they would be accepted, thus having the same practical effect of a quota system.
PG
What do you mean by a mathematical equation?
Page 6 of Gratz’s majority opinion (apologies for lengthy quote):
‘Beginning with the 1998 academic year, the OUA dispensed
with the Guidelines tables and the SCUGA point system in favor of a “selection index,” on which an applicant could score a maximum of 150 points. This index was divided linearly into ranges generally calling for admissions dispositions as follows:
100
John Cole
PG- Apparently it was close enough- it got struck down. It really boils down to one question:
Why 20 points? Why not 5? Why not 50? Why not 1?
PG
The point system didn’t have to be a quota to be struck down — just unconstitutional. In the eyes of six-ish justices, it was. As for why 20 points, that’s just what they chose. As long as they stuck to it and didn’t alter it year by year depending on the candidate pool, it was not a disguised quota.
It’s bad to misname things. If we say the point system is a quota just because it strikes us as more overtly problematic than the “critical mass” policy, we fail to evaluate either correctly.
A “critical mass” policy means that some number of minority students will be admitted, regardless of qualification. That is much more of a quota than a point system, assuming that the point system is adhered to and not fudged around.
M. Scott Eiland
“How did the point system have the effect of a quota system? Suppose the entire minority pool of applicants to UMich one year was just really terrible — low GPAs, low SATs, everything bad. 20 points was not going to get them to the point of being admitted.”
Yeah, and if in 2004 no one tries out for the Olympic sprinting squad who can run 100 meters in less than 20 seconds, I might get to be on a Wheaties box. That’s a lot more likely than your scenario. Grading is largely a relative proceeding–which means that a large number of minority students are going to have B averages and higher no matter how weak the crop of students is. That 20 points is the equivalent of the difference between a straight A average and a straight B average, and guarantees that a large number of minority students will have more points from grades plus the bonus than *any* white or Asian students will get for their grades, and probably enough extra to make up for the difference between indifferent and perfect SAT scores. That’s a quota (a floor, though not necessarily a ceiling). You can float unlikely scenarios as much as you like, but they have nothing to do with reality.
For what it’s worth, I agree with you that the scenario approved by the Court amounts to a quota, and also am baffled by the lack of common sense displayed by the Court when it permitted university officials who had already been found to have violated the Constitution to have unsupervised discretion over the racial makeup of the law school (and presumably the undergraduate system, if a similar system is created). Hey, why not put a federal judge in charge of overseeing the procedures used by the University of Michigan? If it was good enough for desegregating the public schools, it’s good enough for the University of Michigan. Furthermore, the judge’s investigations and findings should be available under the Freedom of Information Act–let’s see the procedures the university is using to stay consistent with the Constitution.