5. 14. Id., at 533; Craig v. Boren, 429 U. The District Court concluded that the Law School's stated interest in achieving diversity in the student body was not a compelling one and enjoined its use of race in the admissions process. Ante, at 1315. Oral Argument - April 01, 2003; Opinion Announcement - June 23, 2003; Opinions. (placing these schools in the uppermost 15 in the Nation). But nowhere in any of the filings in this Court is any evidence that the purported beneficiaries of this racial discrimination prove themselves by performing at (or even near) the same level as those students who receive no preferences. I also use the term aesthetic because I believe it underlines the ineffectiveness of racially discriminatory admissions in actually helping those who are truly underprivileged. S 190, 197 (1976).
Gaines v. Canada, 305 U.S. 337 (1938), that Missouri could not satisfy the demands of separate but equal by paying for legal training of blacks at neighboring state law schools, while maintaining a segregated law school within the State.
Nor is the Courts holding that racial discrimination will be unconstitutional in 25 years made contingent on the gap closing in that time.15. Today, however, the majority ignores the experience of those institutions that have been forced to abandon explicit racial discrimination in admissions. Like Douglass, I believe blacks can achieve in every avenue of American life without the meddling of university administrators. I therefore respectfully dissent from the remainder of the Courts opinion and the judgment. The majority should similarly stay its impulse to validate faddish racial discrimination the Constitution clearly forbids. The majority fails in its summary effort to prove this point. The Law School is not looking for those students who, despite a lower LSAT score or undergraduate grade point average, will succeed in the study of law. In May 2002, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision, citing the Regents of the University of California v. Bakke decision and allowing the use of race to further the "compelling interest" of diversity. The Law School itself admits that the test is imperfect, as it must, given that it regularly admits students who score at or below 150 (the national median) on the test. See Brief for Respondents Bollinger et al. This week the Law Library tasked law student Andy Kiyuna with summarizing a dissent by Justice Ginsburg. ", The University of Michigan Law School Graduate Admissions. At that point these policies will clearly have failed to eliminat[e] the [perceived] need for any racial or ethnic discrimination because the academic credentials gap will still be there. Finally, the Courts disturbing reference to the importance of the countrys law schools as training grounds meant to cultivate a set of leaders with legitimacy in the eyes of the citizenry, ibid., through the use of racial discrimination deserves discussion. I respectfully dissent from the remainder of the Courts opinion and the judgment, however, because I believe that the Law Schools current use of race violates the Equal Protection Clause and that the Constitution means the same thing today as it will in 300 months. Apparently where the status quo being defended is that of the elite establishmenthere the Law Schoolrather than a less fashionable Southern military institution, the Court will defer without serious inquiry and without regard to the applicable legal standard. Similarly no modern law school can claim ignorance of the poor performance of blacks, relatively speaking, on the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT). Nevertheless, the Court found that the use of race violated the Equal Protection Clause, deeming both asserted state interests insufficiently compelling. Having decided to use the LSAT, the Law School must accept the constitutional burdens that come with this decision. The Court never explicitly holds that the Law Schools desire to retain the status quo in academic selectivity is itself a compelling state interest, and, as I have demonstrated, it is not. Arguably, only the public law schools of the University of Texas, the University of California, Berkeley (Boalt Hall), and the University of Virginia maintain the same reputation for excellence as the Law School.5 Two of these States, Texas and California, are so large that they could reasonably be expected to provide elite legal training at a separate law school to students who will, in fact, stay in the State and provide legal services to its citizens.
to Pet. The decision permitted the use of racial preference in student admissions to promote student diversity. The plaintiffs appealed this decision to the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case in 2002.[1][2][3]. See, e.g., Flowers & Pascarella, Cognitive Effects of College Racial Composition on African American Students After 3 Years of College, 40 J. of College Student Development 669, 674 (1999) (concluding that black students experience superior cognitive development at Historically Black Colleges (HBCs) and that, even among blacks, a substantial diversity moderates the cognitive effects of attending an HBC); Allen, The Color of Success: African-American College Student Outcomes at Predominantly White and Historically Black Public Colleges and Universities, 62 Harv. Justice Powells opinion in Bakke and the Courts decision today rest on the fundamentally flawed proposition that racial discrimination can be contextualized so that a goal, such as classroom aesthetics, can be compelling in one context but not in another. That interest depends on enrolling a critical mass of underrepresented minority students, as the majority repeatedly states. Moreover one would think, in light of the Courts decision in United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515 (1996), that before being given license to use racial discrimination, the Law School would be required to radically reshape its admissions process, even to the point of sacrificing some elements of its character. No one would argue that a university could set up a lower general admission standard and then impose heightened requirements only on black applicants. See Part VI, infra. (2003) No.
But see United States v. Fordice, 505 U.S. 717, 748 (1992) (Thomas, J., concurring) (Obviously, a State cannot maintain traditions by closing particular institutions, historically white or historically black, to particular racial groups). Like the Court, ante, at 24, I express no opinion as to whether the Law Schools current admissions program runs afoul of this prohibition.
That separate responsibility of each State within its own sphere is of the essence of statehood maintained under our dual system. Id., at 350 (emphasis added). Ante, at 3, 5, 7, 17, 20, 21, 23, 28; cf. ante, at 21 (referring to the unique experience of being a racial minority, as opposed to being black, or Native American); ante, at 24 (rejecting argument that the Law School maintains a disguised quota by referring to the total number of enrolled underrepresented minority students, not specific races). I agree with Justice Ginsburg that the Courts holding that racial discrimination in admissions will be illegal in 25 years is not based upon a forecast, post, at 3 (concurring opinion). The Law Schools argument, as facile as it is, can only be understood in one way: Classroom aesthetics yields educational benefits, racially discriminatory admissions policies are required to achieve the right racial mix, and therefore the policies are required to achieve the educational benefits.
26, 35 (1992) (finding that black students attending HBCs report higher academic achievement than those attending predominantly white colleges). 16. If there is a critical mass of whites at these institutions, then critical mass is indeed a very small proportion. I do, however, find two points on which I agree.
The fact that some fraction of the States reject a particular enterprise, however, creates a presumption that the enterprise itself is not a compelling state interest.
She filed suit against the university in December 1997, alleging that the university had discriminated against her on the basis of race in violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. in No. While I agree that in 25 years the practices of the Law School will be illegal, they are, for the reasons I have given, illegal now. 2728; 476 U. S., at 315 (Stevens, J., dissenting) ([A]n integrated faculty will be able to provide benefits to the student body that could not be provided by an all-white, or nearly all-white faculty). For instance, in 1984 only 7.3% of law school applicants were black, whereas in 2000 11.3% of law school applicants were black. See, e.g., id., at 265 (For a citizen to be made to forgo even a part of so basic a liberty as his political autonomy, the subordinating interest of the State must be compelling).
Orr v. Orr, 440 U.S. 268, 283 (1979) (noting that suspect classifications are especially impermissible when the choice made by the State appears to redound to the benefit of those without need for special solicitude). In her dissent concerning the University of Michigan’s affirmative action admissions policy in Gratz v. Bollinger, Justice Ginsburg relied upon a 1998 journal article authored by Professor Linda Hamilton Krieger.
I use the LSAT as an example, but the same incentive structure is in place for any admissions criteria, including undergraduate grades, on which minorities are consistently admitted at thresholds significantly lower than whites. Justice Frankfurter went further, however, reasoning that the First Amendment created a right of academic freedom that prohibited the investigation. The measure, called the Michigan Proposal 2, Affirmative Action Initiative (2006), passed.
Under todays decision, it is still the case that racial discrimination that does not help a university to enroll an unspecified number, or critical mass, of underrepresented minority students is unconstitutional. GRUTTER v. BOLLINGER et al.
As the foregoing makes clear, I believe the Courts opinion to be, in most respects, erroneous.
Cal. Columbia, Harvard, and others infamously determined that they had too many Jews, just as today the Law School argues it would have too many whites if it could not discriminate in its admissions process.
Id., at 198 (showing that 63 out of 77 black applicants are accepted with LSAT scores above 155). The University of Texas, for example, sends over three-fourths of its graduates on to work in the State of Texas, vindicating the States interest (compelling or not) in training Texas lawyers. First, the lesson of Korematsu is that national security constitutes a pressing public necessity, though the governments use of race to advance that objective must be narrowly tailored. 7. Do nothing with us! Why does the Law School not also discriminate in favor of black men over black women, given this underrepresentation? There the Court held that [p]ressing public necessity may sometimes justify the existence of [racial discrimination]; racial antagonism never can. Id., at 216.