Today's SCOTUS ruling - Affirmative Action

[PLATO]

A bit of a confusing ruling imo. Race based qualification can be used to promote diversity, but only after you prove that all other methods to promote diversity have been exhausted?

Enlighten me on what really happened here...please.

[Imran Siddiqui]

It's kind of a punt, while asserting strict scrutiny must be used to justify race based affirmative action. It was remanded for the lower court to look at the affirmative action using a strict scrutiny approach.

So, basically it doesn't change much.

[PLATO]

It's kind of a punt, while asserting strict scrutiny must be used to justify race based affirmative action. It was remanded for the lower court to look at the affirmative action using a strict scrutiny approach.

So, basically it doesn't change much.

I tend to agree with this, but where the ruling says that "...the university must provide evidence that its admission program is narrowly tailored to obtain the educational benefits of diversity." becomes a bit confusing to me. Have the educational benefits of diversity been quantified? "proof" is such a definitive word. Is it not clear and universally accepted that diversity enhances education in general? I am not sure what the court is asking the university to do or even if it possible for them to do it.

This type of wording, imo, opens the door to a decline in diversity if applied as written.

[Imran Siddiqui]

That's the basic requirement to pass strict scrutiny test. Basically it has to be a compelling reason to discriminate based on race (Court in Grutter said diversity was compelling reason - ie, educational benefit of diversity is already established by the SCOTUS), and the program must be narrowly tailored to accomplish the strict scrutiny.

[PLATO]

That's the basic requirement to pass strict scrutiny test. Basically it has to be a compelling reason to discriminate based on race (Court in Grutter said diversity was compelling reason - ie, educational benefit of diversity is already established by the SCOTUS), and the program must be narrowly tailored to accomplish the strict scrutiny.

Okay...so it was just a punt then and nothing has changed except the court has reaffirmed "strict scrutiny". Thanks Imran...thought for a minute ole Clarence had slipped in a mickey.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Well, it was expected to be remanded procedurally to begin with and then the SCOTUS threw a wrench by asking all sorts of questions during oral arguments making a bunch of people think "OH MY, THEY IS GONNA RULE ON THE MERITS!!". Fake out!

[Wiglaf]

What an idiotic, wrongheaded analysis. By no reasonable interpretation was the decision a "punt," whatever that means, and the Supreme Court is not in the business of wasting people's time. The case was sent back to the lower court with instructions to analyze the AA program under a stricter standard. This opens the floodgates to a lot of challenges to AA policies.

[Sava]

only racists get mad about AA

[Wiglaf]

More detail from someone who isn't retarded:

Yale law professor Jack Balkin – a leading constitutional law scholar generally sympathetic to affirmative action – has an interesting post on Fisher v. University of Texas. Like me, Balkin believes that the decision will make it more difficult for universities to defend racial preferences in court:

Fisher distinguishes between two questions. The first is whether diversity is a compelling interest for a state university; the second is whether an admissions program that uses race to achieve educational diversity is narrowly tailored.

On the first question, the courts will generally defer to university officials’ belief that educational diversity is essential to the university’s educational mission.

However, on the second, question–whether the university’s use of race is narrowly tailored–courts will not defer to the university’s views. In particular, courts will not defer to the university’s judgment that no workable race-neutral alternative would achieve the benefits of educational diversity “about as well and at tolerable administrative expense....”

This is important news, even if you think that this view was implicit in previous caselaw. If a race-netural approach would achieve the benefits of educational diversity not exactly to the same degree, but “about as well and at tolerable administrative expense,” then the university may not use a race-based program. The judgement of adequacy of race-neutral alternatives will be made by a court, and although it will pay attention to the professional judgment of educators, the court will not simply defer to that judgment.

This means that universities will be pressed to prove that “ten-percent” plans and class-based or socio-economic-based affirmative action programs will not do approximately as well as programs that consider race as one factor. The question will not be only one of numbers, but also the kind of diversity produced and its effects on education. That question will be quite complicated, but the important point is that the university will have to prove its position to the satisfaction of federal judges, many of whom are by now quite hostile to affirmative action programs of all kinds.

[Imran Siddiqui]

This is important news, even if you think that this view was implicit in previous caselaw. If a race-netural approach would achieve the benefits of educational diversity not exactly to the same degree, but “about as well and at tolerable administrative expense,” then the university may not use a race-based program. The judgement of adequacy of race-neutral alternatives will be made by a court, and although it will pay attention to the professional judgment of educators, the court will not simply defer to that judgment

A) View was implicit in Grutter.
B) The practical upshot is that universities will have to write a slight bit more in their determination in their legal briefs and then the courts will decide that race based preferences were necessary for diversity - mark my words. There is a reason that Breyer and Sotomayor joined in on this decision, without a concurrence from either of them specifying that they agreed with the result but not the entire holding.

[Imran Siddiqui]

the Supreme Court is not in the business of wasting people's time.

Explain Planned Parenthood v. Casey

[Wiglaf]

If you want to pretend courts will ignore this ruling because Sotomayor didn't write a separate concurrence (??) you are almost certainly wrong. If you want to mislead someone else into thinking that this ruling was nothing more than a "punt," you are douche. Frankly I hope that as karmic punishment you are soon detained on some trumped up charge.

Explain Planned Parenthood v. Casey

It overruled parts of Roe, which is a case you may not have heard about because you were stuffing yourself with $10 Indian lunch buffet all throughout law school instead of hitting the books.

[Imran Siddiqui]

When a controversial issue ends with a 7-1 decision, its usually a sign that not much has changed (esp when they reiterate the standard articulated in the previous ruling on the issue).

It overruled parts of Roe

What, in suggesting viability instead of the trimester division and undue burden as opposed to 'heightened scrutiny'? In practical terms, nothing much changed (Hell, the plurality ruling kept going out of its way to keep repeating "stare decisis").

[Sava]

I like Indian lunch buffet. And $10 is a good price.

[Uncle Sparky]

I like Indian lunch buffet. And $10 is a good price.

Don't expect any meat on a $10 Indian lunch buffet.