At SCOTUSblog, Lyle Denniston has an interesting post on an effort by lawyers who represented Fred Korematsu and other victims of the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II to persuade the Obama administration to advocate the overruling of Korematsu v. United States, the notorious 1944 Supreme Court decision that upheld the forcible internment of […]
Archive | Racial Discrimination
NAACP Backs State Autonomy on Marijuana Policy
By Ilya Somin on November 11, 2013 11:20 am in Federalism, Racial Discrimination, Racism, War on Drugs
The NAACP recently passed a resolution backing a proposed federal law that would prohibit enforcement of federal laws banning marijuana in states that have imposed lesser penalties or have legalized marijuana entirely. The resolution cites the “misguided and misplaced policies” of the War on Drugs, which have resulted in “the disproportionate over-confinement of racial and […]
Former “Southern Avenger” Jack Hunter Resigns from Rand Paul’s Staff
Jack Hunter, the Rand Paul aide once known as the “Southern Avenger” has resigned from the senator’s staff in order to avoid being a “distraction.” Hunter has a history of pro-Confederate and borderline racist statements, though he has repudiated them in more recent years. In addition to creating a political problem for Rand Paul, the […]
Libertarianism, the Confederacy, and the Civil War Revisited
By Ilya Somin on July 16, 2013 8:34 pm in Civil War, History, Libertarianism, Racial Discrimination, Secession
Revelations that Rand Paul aide Jack Hunter has a history of racist and pro-Confederate statements during his days as a radio shock jock have rekindled the longstanding debate over libertarian attitudes towards the Civil War. Hunter has repudiated many of his former statements and attitudes. But that hasn’t stopped the controversy from continuing. This uproar […]
Frederick Douglass on How We Should Remember the Civil War
On Civil War anniversaries, like today’s 150th anniversary of the end of the Battle of Gettysburg, it has become traditional to commemorate both sides equally. There is some logic to this practice. We do not want to unnecessarily perpetuate sectional grievances, or be seen as somehow blaming today’s white southerners for the wrongs of earlier […]
Indian Commerce Clause in the Supreme Court
By David Kopel on July 1, 2013 7:43 pm in Child Protection, Commerce Clause, Constitutional History, Constitutional Law, Federalism, Racial Discrimination, Supreme Court
Among the cases decided during final week of the Supreme Court term was Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl (Scotusblog summary here.) Justice Alito’s opinion for a 5-4 majority begins: This case is about a little girl (Baby Girl) who is classified as an Indian because she is 1.2% (3/256) Cherokee. Because Baby Girl is classified […]
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 […]
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 […]
Competing Interpretations of Fisher
By Ilya Somin on June 24, 2013 2:49 pm in Affirmative Action, Fisher v. University of Texas, Racial Discrimination
Commentary on today’s Supreme Court decision in Fisher v. University of Texas seems to be divided between those who believe, as I do, that the ruling tightens judicial scrutiny of university affirmative action plans, and those who contend it will make no real difference. Amy Howe of SCOTUSblog suggests that “affirmative action survives at least […]
Fisher, the Texas Ten Percent Plan, and “Race-Neutral” Alternatives to Affirmative Action
By Ilya Somin on June 24, 2013 12:41 pm in Affirmative Action, Fisher v. University of Texas, Racial Discrimination
When it was litigated in the lower courts, most observers thought that the most distinctive aspect of Fisher v. University of Texas is that the racial preferences used in its affirmative action plan were grafted on top of the Texas Ten Percent Plan, which guarantees any Texan admission to the UT so long as they […]
Preliminary Thoughts on Fisher v. University of Texas
By Ilya Somin on June 24, 2013 11:31 am in Affirmative Action, Fisher v. University of Texas, Racial Discrimination
Today’s Supreme Court decision in Fisher v. University of Texas is a significant victory for opponents of affirmative action in higher education. Formally, the 7-1 ruling written by Justice Anthony Kennedy only remands the case to the court of appeals for consideration under the “strict scrutiny” standard, which requires the government to show that racial […]
My Take on Heather Gerken’s Progressive Defense of Federalism
I recently participated in a Tulsa Law Review symposium in honor of Yale Law School Professor Heather Gerken, one of the nation’s leading federalism scholars. Much of Gerken’s work urges her fellow political liberals to rethink their traditional distaste for federalism. My contribution to the symposium is now available on SSRN. Here is the abstract: […]
The Federalist Society’s New Executive Branch Review Blog
The Federalist Society recently unveiled its new Executive Branch Review Blog, which focuses on legal and constitutional issues involving – you guessed it – the executive branch. One of the regular bloggers there will be my wife Alison Somin, who serves as a special assistant/counsel with the US Commission on Civil Rights. Yesterday, she put […]
New Scholarship on Originalism and Discrimination
By Ilya Somin on April 12, 2013 6:30 pm in Affirmative Action, Constitutional Theory, Originalism, Racial Discrimination, Sex Discrimination
For a long time, the conventional wisdom among legal scholars has been that an originalist interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment would require courts to uphold laws that discriminate against women and laws banning interracial marriage. While these arguments were once advanced by defenders of sexism and Jim Crow laws, today they are usually used as […]