The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld Michigan’s ban on the use of racial preferences in university admissions, a decision that might encourage other states to adopt similar prohibitions.

By a vote of 6 to 2, the court concluded that it was not up to judges to overturn the decision by Michigan voters to disallow consideration of race when deciding who gets into the state’s universities. California, Florida and the state of Washington have similar prohibitions.

Read the court's decision


Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action
The Supreme Court says in a 6-2 ruling that Michigan voters had the right to change their constitution to prohibit public universities from considering race in admissions decisions
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“This case is not about how the debate about racial preferences should be resolved. It is about who may resolve it,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in the court’s controlling opinion.

“There is no authority in the Constitution of the United States or in this court’s precedents for the judiciary to set aside Michigan laws that commit this policy determination to the voters.”

Kennedy was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas agreed with the outcome, but would have gone further to prohibit racial preferences.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer also agreed with the judgment, abandoning the liberal wing of the court.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Justice Elena Kagan did not take part in the decision.

Sotomayor, for the first time in her tenure on the court, noted how strongly she disagreed with the decision by reading her dissent from the bench.

“Today’s decision eviscerates an important strand of our equal protection jurisprudence,” wrote Sotomayor in her 58-page dissenting opinion. “For members of historically marginalized groups, which rely on the federal courts to protect their constitutional rights, the decision can hardly bolster hope for a vision of democracy that preserves for all the right to participate meaningfully and equally in self-government.”

An appeals court had said that a Michigan constitutional amendment banning the use of racial preferences in university admissions, approved by 58 percent of the state’s voters in 2006, had restructured the political process in a way that unfairly targeted minorities.

The Supreme Court decision to uphold the ban was not surprising. At oral arguments, a majority of the justices had been skeptical of the appeals court’s rationale and questioned how requiring the admission process to be color-blind could violate the constitution’s guarantee of equal protection.

Kennedy said the court’s decisions that allow race to be used in limited ways in admission decisions did not dictate that it must be used.

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette praised the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the appeals court ruling.

“The U.S. Supreme Court made the right call today,” Schuette said. “Our state constitution requires equal treatment in college admissions, because it is fundamentally wrong to treat people differently based on the color of their skin. A majority of Michigan voters embraced the ideal of equal treatment in 2006, and today their decision was affirmed.”

In a sense, the decision does not change what states are allowed to do, and even many conservative states--Texas, for instance--have been adamant that they be allowed to consider race in order to achieve diverse student bodies.

But the court’s decision could encourage opponents of affirmative action to press for action, using the decision as an impetus.

“The Supreme Court has given voters the green light to eliminate the use of racial preferences in college admissions, which is discouraging for racial diversity,” said Richard D. Kahlenberg, a scholar at the Century Foundation who has advocated for economic diversity in admission decisions.

“The good news, however, is that there are alternative ways to achieve diversity that can also deal with economic inequalities.”

At issue at the Supreme Court was language that says state colleges and universities “shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin.”

The amendment was approved by voters after the Supreme Court, in another case from Michigan, in 2003 allowed the limited use of race as part of an “individualized, holistic review of each applicant’s file.”

But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, which narrowly tossed out the Michigan amendment, ruled that there was a difference between not using affirmative action and banning it in the state constitution. The latter violates the principle that minorities must be allowed to fully participate in creating laws and that “the majority may not manipulate the channels of change so as to place unique burdens on issues of importance to them,” Judge R. Guy Cole Jr. wrote.

His comparison was that while residents of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula may lobby decision-makers to grant preferences to their underrepresented students, minority groups would now have to change the constitution before even having a chance to advocate racial considerations because of the amendment.

The case is Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action. Kagan gave no reason for her recusal, as is customary, but it was likely because she had worked on the issue while previously serving as the Obama administration’s solicitor general.

Last term, in a case challenging the University of Texas’s use of race in making some admission decisions, the court declined to revise its holding in a previous case. The justices sent the case back to a lower court for a closer look at whether the university had used all the tools at its disposal to increase racial diversity before resorting to considering race in admissions.

“shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin.”

 whembly wrote:
Good.

I've been following this case for quite some time...

I'm trying to figure out how is it that banning discrimination can be deemed discriminatory? o.O

 Polonius wrote:
Plus, its good to see the downtrodden white person get a break for once, am I right?

 AlexHolker wrote:
Good. Affirmative action is founded on the racist belief that black people are interchangeable

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Sotamayor is mad

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Sotamayor is mad
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sotomayor-accuses-colleagues-of-trying-to-wish-away-racial-inequality/2014/04/22/e5892f90-ca49-11e3-93eb-6c0037dde2ad_story.html

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Sotamayor is mad

 whembly wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Sotamayor is mad
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sotomayor-accuses-colleagues-of-trying-to-wish-away-racial-inequality/2014/04/22/e5892f90-ca49-11e3-93eb-6c0037dde2ad_story.html

That's quite a legalistic furball there...

o.O

Horrible dissent.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Sotamayor is mad
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sotomayor-accuses-colleagues-of-trying-to-wish-away-racial-inequality/2014/04/22/e5892f90-ca49-11e3-93eb-6c0037dde2ad_story.html

There's no real legal support for her dissent, and plenty of legal support for the majority. The problem she has is that the majority isn't relying simply on the law, they are basically declaring an end to any attempt to redress racial inequality. From any sort of practical, realistic view point, arguing that affirmative action hurts racial inequality is bunk.

 Polonius wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Sotamayor is mad
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sotomayor-accuses-colleagues-of-trying-to-wish-away-racial-inequality/2014/04/22/e5892f90-ca49-11e3-93eb-6c0037dde2ad_story.html

That's quite a legalistic furball there...

o.O

Horrible dissent.

Well, this is a touchy issue for her in particular, and I think legal minded progressives in general.

There's no real legal support for her dissent, and plenty of legal support for the majority. The problem she has is that the majority isn't relying simply on the law, they are basically declaring an end to any attempt to redress racial inequality. From any sort of practical, realistic view point, arguing that affirmative action hurts racial inequality is bunk.

But its part of a larger trend in the current discource. Liberals have painted conservatives into a corner, by pointing out how nearly all of their issues hurt, directly or indirectly, disadvantaged minorites. While true, it's asinine to assume racism is behind all of American conservatism. It's a gun that liberals wave around way too much.

The problem is that the defense conservatives have developed is to simply refuse to acknowledge any racism after about 1972. Conservatives are obsessed with racism, but only to the extent that they dont' want to be accused of it.

So we have two factions basically talking past each other. In the past, it didn't matter, because racial politics weren't highly correlated to party or even ideology (althgouh highly to geography). Now, a racial progressive is almost always a democrat, and vice versa.

We are Americans. The sooner we realize that... the current racial tensions would dissipate.

 Polonius wrote:
From any sort of practical, realistic view point, arguing that affirmative action hurts racial inequality is bunk.

 AlexHolker wrote:

 Polonius wrote:
From any sort of practical, realistic view point, arguing that affirmative action hurts racial inequality is bunk.

Tell that to a Chinese-American who must get an SAT score 450 points higher than his African-American classmate if he wants the same opportunities to go to college. How is telling him that he needs an SAT score of 1550 and not 1100 to get in, purely because he is of Chinese descent and not of African descent, not racist?

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I know im getting tired of being told I only got so far because im a white male

 d-usa wrote:
Conservatives should shift focus from helping minorities get into college to helping people pay for college based on need.

 d-usa wrote:

 AlexHolker wrote:

 Polonius wrote:
From any sort of practical, realistic view point, arguing that affirmative action hurts racial inequality is bunk.

Tell that to a Chinese-American who must get an SAT score 450 points higher than his African-American classmate if he wants the same opportunities to go to college. How is telling him that he needs an SAT score of 1550 and not 1100 to get in, purely because he is of Chinese descent and not of African descent, not racist?

That post is filled with so much stereotyping that is becomes a parody of the whole thread...

 Frazzled wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I know im getting tired of being told I only got so far because im a white male

Wait you're not a pastel purple bronie?

 Frazzled wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

 AlexHolker wrote:

 Polonius wrote:
From any sort of practical, realistic view point, arguing that affirmative action hurts racial inequality is bunk.

Tell that to a Chinese-American who must get an SAT score 450 points higher than his African-American classmate if he wants the same opportunities to go to college. How is telling him that he needs an SAT score of 1550 and not 1100 to get in, purely because he is of Chinese descent and not of African descent, not racist?

That post is filled with so much stereotyping that is becomes a parody of the whole thread...

Thats reality in California.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I know im getting tired of being told I only got so far because im a white male

Wait you're not a pastel purple bronie?

No, I tried the species reassignment surgery, but apparently Tijuana surgeons are not trustworthy. I miss my kidneys.

 AlexHolker wrote:
Tell that to a Chinese-American who must get an SAT score 450 points higher than his African-American classmate if he wants the same opportunities to go to college. How is telling him that he needs an SAT score of 1550 and not 1100 to get in, purely because he is of Chinese descent and not of African descent, not racist?