Read past the headline....the Supreme Court just decided not to take this particular case. They did not rule explicitly in favor of affirmative action at the college (or in this case grad school) admissions level. But these cases continue to be brought, and the lower courts have not been consistent in how they decide them. So eventually the Supreme Court will have to weigh in on the issue it seems.....
Tuesday May 29 10:17 AM ET
Supreme Court Allows University Affirmative Action
By James Vicini
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) on Tuesday rejected a challenge to the use of race as a factor in university admission decisions to achieve a diverse student body, a key question in the national debate over affirmative action.
Confronted with an issue from its landmark 1978 ruling called ``Bakke v. Board of Regents,'' the high court declined to consider whether diversity represented a compelling government interest sufficient to justify race-based preferences.
Without any comment or dissent, the justices denied an appeal arguing the University of Washington Law School acted unconstitutionally and illegally when it considered the race of applicants under its former admissions policy.
Blacks and other minority groups have defended affirmative action programs as a way to make up for past discrimination while critics have attacked them as an illegal form of ``reverse discrimination.''
The Supreme Court, led by a 5-4 conservative majority, has generally made it harder for affirmative actions programs to pass constitutional scrutiny, sharply restricting their use in government contracting.
In its 1978 Bakke decision, the high court struck down the use of racial quotas in school admissions, but allowed universities to consider race in deciding which students to accept.
In the Bakke ruling, Justice Lewis Powell, in an opinion fully joined by no other member of the court, said race could be used as one of many factors designed to achieve a broad type of diversity of viewpoints in the student body.
THREE UNSUCCESSFUL WHITE APPLICANTS SUED
Katuria Smith, Angela Rock and Michael Pyle, three white applicants, sued in 1997 after they were rejected by the law school.
A federal judge and then a U.S. appeals court upheld the university's use of race in admissions under its policy, which had been in effect until voters in Washington state in 1998 adopted an initiative that banned affirmative action.
The three applicants, represented by the Center for Individual Rights, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit group that opposes affirmative action, appealed to the Supreme Court.
Their lawyer, Michael Rosman, said the case involved the use of racial preferences in admissions to higher education. ''There are few, if any, legal issues more significant,'' he said, adding that U.S. appeals courts have split on the issue.
Attorneys for the state said the appeal should be rejected. They said educational institutions, students and parents have relied on Bakke as precedent for limited use of race in admissions.
``The law school's evidence confirms (Powell's) wisdom, demonstrating that educational diversity benefits students of all races,'' they said. |
