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Will Affirmative Action Disappear?
- There's a good chance the Supreme Court will overturn affirmative action this fall. So why is there so much silence on the issue -- from every corner?
- Struggle in Louisiana Over Efforts to Seat First Black Chief Justice
Julianne Malveaux, JulianneMalveaux.com
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The most conservative Supreme Court in the past four decades is poised to overturn the already limited affirmative action provisions in the latter part of this year (after October 1) unless good sense visits one or two of them and they vote in favor of student body diversity instead of against it. Since Bush-appointed justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito have joined the court as chief justice and associate justice, respectively, the court has voiced hostility to government uses of race.
The case, Fisher v. University of Texas, was brought by one Abigail Noel Fisher, a white student who did not qualify for the Texas Top Ten Percent plan, which automatically admits the top 10 percent of every high school class in Texas to the University of Texas. Despite this, Fisher contends that she was denied Fourteenth Amendment protection and was discriminated against because of her race. Her reasoning: though more than 80 percent of UT students are admitted under the Top Ten Percent Plan, others are admitted based on talent, leadership qualities and family circumstances, as well as race. This seems to meet the Grutter v. Bollinger standard that race may be one, but not the only, factor in determining college admissions. However, Abigail Fisher is one of a long line of relatively mediocre white students who may or may not have been admitted to UT, regardless of race. The student, who seems unable to accept her own academic shortcoming, is blaming the fact that she didn’t get into UT on African American students, instead of blaming it on herself.
Related:
Struggle in Louisiana Over Efforts to Seat First Black Chief Justice, C.C. Campbell-Rock, Louisiana Weekly
- Backlash against efforts by La. Supreme Court to turn back the clock intensifies
- Gay prosecutor denied judgeship in VA
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