Here is the Associated Press account of the Supreme Court’s decisions in Gratz and Grutter, the two University of Michigan cases in which the University’s racially discriminatory practices were challenged.
The Court upheld race discrimination at the University’s law school on a 5-4 vote, with Sandra O’Connor siding with the liberals and writing the Court’s opinion. The Court overturned the undergraduate school’s discriminatory practices on a 6-3 vote.
The key ruling is that achieving racial diversity in public universities is a “compelling state interest” that justifies the practice of race discrimination. The Court had never before so held. The ground for the ruling overturning the undergraduate school’s practices was that they were not narrowly tailored to achieve the compelling interest of racial diversity.
I have not yet had time to read the opinions, and both Deacon and the Trunk have more expertise in this area of the law than I do, so I will defer to their comments. But on its face, this appears to be a tragic ruling which ensures that race discrimination will remain a permanent part of the American landscape. Since the alleged benefits of “diversity” never go away, race discrimination is approved forever. Will this turn out to be as dark a day in our nation’s history as the day in March 1857 when the Court decided the Dred Scott case? I defer to Deacon and the Trunk on that one.
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