SCOTUS grants cert to race-based admissions cases
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(President of Harvard Lawrence) Bacow states:
Yesterday, the Supreme Court announced a decision that could put forty years of legal precedent at risk. Colleges and universities could lose the freedom and flexibility to create diverse campus communities that enrich education for all. Our admissions process, in which race is considered as one factor among many, makes us stronger. It prompts learning in day-to-day exchanges in our classrooms and laboratories, in our residential houses, and on our playing fields and stages. Our students understand these truths and see them reflected in their interactions with their classmates. Diversity opens our eyes to the promise of a better future.
Harvard celebrates and nurtures individuality as intensely as this nation. Those who challenge our admissions policies would ask us to rely upon a process far more mechanistic, a process far more reliant on simple assessments of objective criteria. Each of us is, however, more than our numbers, more than our grades, more than our rankings or scores. Ask yourself, how much have you learned from other people at this University? How much have you grown from conversations across difference? Would these conversations have been as rich if you had shared the same interests, the same life experiences, and—yes—the same racial or ethnic background as your fellow community members? This is why applications of any kind routinely go beyond mere numbers to include interviews, samples of work product, recommendations, and references. Narrowly drawn measures of academic distinction are not the only indicators of individual promise.
As the Supreme Court has recognized many times, race matters in the United States. I long for the day when it does not, but we still have miles to go before our journey is complete. Harvard will continue to defend with vigor admissions policies that were endorsed in the thoughtful decisions of two federal courts that concluded that we do not discriminate; our practices are consistent with Supreme Court precedent; there is no persuasive, credible evidence warranting a different outcome. Though I wish yesterday had turned out differently, I remain confident that the rule of law—and the respect for precedent that perpetuates it—will prevail.
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You can read blogger Mirengoff's comments on that letter at the link above.
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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@george-k said in SCOTUS grants cert to race-based admissions cases:
Our admissions process, in which race is considered as one factor among many, makes us stronger.
Try considering race to select the white guy first and see how strong that makes you.
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@jon-nyc said in SCOTUS grants cert to race-based admissions cases:
They combined the Harvard case with the UNC case.
Great discussion about it on the latest Advisory Opinions podcast with David French and Sarah Isgur. They read some pretty damning texts and emails between admissions officers that came out of discovery. Worth a listen if this topic interests you.
I assume the texts and emails were also available in the deliberations of the lower courts?
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@george-k said in SCOTUS grants cert to race-based admissions cases:
Harvard will continue to defend with vigor admissions policies that were endorsed in the thoughtful decisions of two federal courts that concluded that we do not discriminate
If they would at least be honest: "Yes, we discriminate by race but we think it's ok and serves a higher purpose. I get that it must suck to get that rejection from us because you have the wrong ethnicity, but those are the breaks."
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@klaus said in SCOTUS grants cert to race-based admissions cases:
OK, but it is in no way predictive for the outcome, right?
No, but it does indicate that they see potential flaws in lower court rulings…
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Not in general, but the granting of cert requires minimum 4 votes.
And race-based admissions are longstanding (~40 yr) precedent.
So if you want to grant cert you almost certainly want to reverse or at least alter precedent.
But to decide the case they need 5 votes. We don't know how many voted to grant cert. I'm guessing 5 or 6. I suspect they have the votes on the court to overturn it outright.
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Yes they can change longstanding precedent but it's not that common.
Re race-based admissions they elide over it with flowery language, just like the Harvard president above. They say "wholistic admissions with race as one factor" instead of the more honest 'we discriminate against individuals on account of their race and ethnicity as a means to an end'.
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@klaus said in SCOTUS grants cert to race-based admissions cases:
So in the past SCOTUS said "Race-based admission is ok" and now they may say "not ok"?
Can the SCOTUS just say "We changed our mind. Instead of X, now "not X" is the law"?
No. They can say X is no longer a correct interpretation of the law or they can say that Law X is not constitutional, but they can’t make Not X law. Though Not X becomes de facto law…
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LD is right, they aren't producing legislation, In some cases they strike it down, or provisions of it down.
In a case like this they would say that the policy violates the 14th amendment (in the case of UNC, a public school) or is contrary to the civil rights act of 1964, which very clearly prohibits discrimination by race (in the case of both schools). SO they would be interpreting the law and the constitution, but as LD noted that becomes de-facto the law of the land.
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Well yes, and thankfully so.
In 1857 the Supreme Court ruled that "the black man has no rights that the white man is bound to respect".
In 1897 (IIRC) they ruled that systematic segregation by race was legal under the even-then-obvious fiction, "separate but equal".
So yeah its a good thing that it happens.
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@klaus said in SCOTUS grants cert to race-based admissions cases:
So there is a notion that SCOTUS can have been "wrong"? Case law is confusing...
Personally, I have some moral and ethical problems with case law, but understand that it’s also necessary to some extent to prevent every issue from being tried over and over again…
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@klaus said in SCOTUS grants cert to race-based admissions cases:
So in the past SCOTUS said "Race-based admission is ok" and now they may say "not ok"?
Can the SCOTUS just say "We changed our mind. Instead of X, now "not X" is the law"?
So there is a notion that SCOTUS can have been "wrong"? Case law is confusing...I don't know if SCOTUS ever said RBA is OK. A lower court or a state court might have, which is why some challenges make their way up to SCOTUS for final determination according to the Constitution.
I think that good jurisprudence is very circumspect and parsimonious. Answer the very specific question presented, and don't necessarily extrapolate or color outside the lines. It's for the legislature to define laws if they want to grant or limit rights not otherwise accepted, not for the courts.
So its not necessarily the courts changing their minds, but considering the constitutionality of the argument as it is presented to them.
