Philip Guo (Slate) argues that his being an Asian young man led him to “fit society’s image of a young programmer,” and therefore got him cut various kinds of slack while he was a beginner and not very good. Maybe that’s right; I’m sure people do view others through these sorts of stereotypes to some […]
Archive | Affirmative Action
Oral Argument in Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action
Lyle Denniston of SCOTUSblog has a detailed discussion of today’s oral argument in Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, the case challenging the constitutionality of Michigan’s Proposal 2, a state constitutional amendment banning the use of racial preferences in college admissions. As Denniston notes, the five conservative justices – including key swing voter Anthony […]
Three Important New Books on Constitutional Law
By Ilya Somin on October 13, 2013 11:45 am in Affirmative Action, Constitutional Law, Constitutional Theory, Originalism
In this post, I briefly review three important new books on constitutional law that are likely to interest many of our readers. Here goes: I. John McGinnis and Michael Rappaport, Originalism and the Good Constitution. This book is a fascinating and innovative defense of originalism. Unlike some other originalists, who defend the theory because they […]
Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action: Forgetting the Narrative
By David Bernstein on October 2, 2013 9:39 am in Affirmative Action, Constitutional Law, Supreme Court
[See update below. This term, the Supreme Court will decide Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action. The Sixth Circuit, in an en banc 8-7 opinion, invalidated a Michigan constitutional amendment, passed by referendum, that forbids racial preferences by government institutions, including public universities The court held that the amendment violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal […]
The Obvious But Underappreciated Point About Federal Power and Equality
Mike Rappaport has a post at the Liberty Law Blog making a seemingly straightforward but surprisingly underappreciated point: There is good reason to think that the Fourteenth Amendment’s equality requirement was not originally meant to apply to the federal government. People frequently try to challenge various originalist views about equality by pointing to the actions […]
Is Martin Luther King’s Dream Unconstitutional?
By Nick Rosenkranz on August 28, 2013 3:11 pm in Affirmative Action, Constitutional Law, Equal Protection
Fifty years ago today, Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke these immortal words: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” He would have been mystified, one imagines, by […]
The Mismatch Effect, in the L.A. Times
As Heather MacDonald points out in the National Review Online, an L.A. Times story from Aug. 16, 2013 is a good case study illustrating my colleague Rick Sander’s mismatch effect thesis. The article is about Kashawn Campbell, who sounds like an immensely appealing and studious young man who has been failed by the system, most […]
Another Odd Thing about that “Latino/a Law Professors” Letter
On Friday, I noted what I deemed to be a strange response from a self-described “group of Latino/a law professors” to a piece I wrote for Scotusblog on affirmative action and Hispanics after Fisher; strange primarily because I was addressing the diversity rationale for affirmative action, which is the rationale approved of by the Supreme […]
Strange Response from “A Group of Latino/a Law Professors”
A self-described “group of Latino/a Law Professors” has published a strange response to my commentary on Hispanics and affirmative action after Fisher, published on Scotus blog, noted by me here, and followed up yesterday. Why strange? Because the response has very little to do with my post. My post, being commentary on a Supreme Court […]
Brief Followup on Post on Hispanics and Affirmative Action after Fisher
I’ve said most of these things in previous posts, but judging from the comments, memories are short (and we get a lot of new readers the last week of the Supreme Court term), so let me reiterate: (1) I think private universities should be free to have whatever affirmative action policies they want, for whatever […]
Stuart Taylor’s Response to My Post on Prospects for Challenges to University Affirmative Action Policies After Fisher
By Ilya Somin on June 27, 2013 12:10 pm in Affirmative Action, Fisher v. University of Texas, Racial Discrimination
Well-known columnist Stuart Taylor has posted a thoughtful response to my critique of his earlier post arguing that the prospects for future challenges to university affirmative policies after Fisher are bleak: Ilya Somin has posted a critique of my Minding The Campus commentary worrying that the Supreme Court’s decision in Fisher v. University of Texas […]
Will There be More Challenges to Affirmative Action Policies in the Wake of Fisher?
By Ilya Somin on June 25, 2013 8:40 pm in Affirmative Action, Fisher v. University of Texas, Racial Discrimination
Unlike me, co-blogger David Bernstein and widely respected columnist Stuart Taylor believe that the Court’s recent decision in Fisher v. University of Texas was a setback for opponents of affirmative action. They agree that the Court’s ruling raised the legal standards that affirmative action programs must meet in order to survive judicial scrutiny. But they […]
Fisher is a Significant Loss for Opponents of Affirmative Action Preferences
Sure, the Court tightened the official standards for preferences. But judging from past experience, unless otherwise compelled by state officials in a few conservative states, university officials will ignore Fisher to the extent it conflicts with their current practices. The only way Fisher can then be enforced is through lawsuits over university policies, which are […]
Hispanics and Affirmative Action after Fisher
My commentary is up at Scotusblog. Here are the key paragraphs: Hispanics can be the direct descendants of Spanish conquistadors, their indigenous victims, African slaves, immigrants from anywhere in the world, or any combination of these. Hispanics’ ancestors have come to the U.S. from any one of twenty-one very diverse Spanish-speaking countries, plus possibly Portugal, […]
Jack Balkin on Fisher
By Ilya Somin on June 24, 2013 9:22 pm in Affirmative Action, Constitutional Theory, Originalism, Racial Discrimination
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 […]