![]() Indeed, the Court explicitly rejected the “reparations” argument in Bakke, holding that remedying the effects of societal discrimination is too vague to constitute a compelling interest.īut this cuts against why I suspect many people support affirmative action: as a necessary instance of racial discrimination to counter the effects of centuries of anti-minority discrimination. To pass the “strict scrutiny” test prescribed by classifications on the basis of race, a university’s admissions process must be “narrowly tailored” to this compelling interest - meaning that race must be one factor among many and universities must exhaust race-neutral alternatives before adopting racial preferences. In a line of cases that followed Bakke, the Court has reaffirmed the constitutionality of affirmative action on the basis that achieving the benefits of a diverse student body is a compelling government interest. To examine how the political and legal considerations are tied up, we must first understand the precedent. ![]() My goal is to explore the extent to which affirmative action jurisprudence is influenced by justices’ personal views of racial preferences, namely the material effects of affirmative action and the value of diversity. Aside from, maybe, abortion, I can think of no issue where the line between personal beliefs and dispassionate legal analysis appears more blurred than in affirmative action. While a trove of issues implicating racial equality remain salient, modern debates over racial discrimination often focus on an institution alleged by some to be a form of “reverse discrimination:” affirmative action.Īs Harvard College and the University of North Carolina battle Students for Fair Admissions before the Supreme Court, the constitutional fate of affirmative action, first recognized in 1978 in Regents of the University of California v. ![]() Only in 1964, with the passage of the Civil Rights Act, did our nation extend full political equality to citizens of all races, concluding a long regime of racial segregation dating back before our nation’s inception. ![]()
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