• Welcome to the Internet Infidels Discussion Board.

Supreme Court allows Popular Vote Disapproval of Affirmative Action

A bit more reading on the case seems to indicate a mistake on my part. Alito, Kennedy, and Roberts are saying this isn't Unconstitutional because the referendum was about restricting additional privilege, not about restricting rights.

Exactly. There's nothing in the federal Constitution for this measure to come into conflict with--it's not about equal rights, it's about additional privilege. Thus it's allowed to stand.
 
If I recall from the discussion we had about this before this case was about referendums more than Affirmative action.

The USSC had previously found that states could or could not offer affirmative action programs if they felt it was in their interest.

Logic would dictate that if a referendum is a legitimate way a state can pass a law then it would be a legitimate way to establish a state policy on affirmative action.

The plaintiffs argued that referendums that were designed to harm one specific race where unconstitutional and found a court to agree based on a dubiously related precedent.

This decision restores the basic logic.
 
The decision itself is a good one, but the reasoning is irrelevant since it is mostly post-hoc rationalization for a decision most of the Justices decided based upon faith-based ideology. It just happens to be the case in this instance that the most reasonable, justifiable, and fair decision was the one that conservative ideologues would also reach but on unseasoned faith and less than noble intentions.

On the one hand I am glad that the outcome means that voters can decide that state-sponsored racism and policies that directly harm people based solely upon race is not a great method for countering historical impacts of racism. On the other hand the decision was inevitable because of the conservative ideology that controls the current SCOTUS, which in broader terms is depressing and more negatively impactful than this ruling is positively impactful.
 
What should be depressing is that 2 USSC justices are so unbound from logic and the law as to find that a law restoring equal protection under the law violates equal protection under the law.
 
Does anyone here know why we have affirmative action in the first place?

this decision, taken with the voting rights decisions, is pointing this country in a direction backwards from where it took so long to arrive.

Now I know this doesn't bother some people here because it will not affect them therefore fuck anyone it does, but mark my words, this is but a harbinger of things to come and people of color will not be going back to the back of the bus.
 
Now I know this doesn't bother some people here because it will not affect them therefore fuck anyone it does, but mark my words, this is but a harbinger of things to come and people of color will not be going back to the back of the bus.

Well, of course not. With 0% financing on so many new models of cars these days, there's no need for them to be taking the bus at all.
 
Does anyone here know why we have affirmative action in the first place?
To piss off conservatives? Oh, and to help erase the whole, we fucked with your lives and your progress was held back. Affirmative Action is a nudge-nudge / wink-wink go ahead in line because you should have been ahead in the line in the first place if that whole Jim Crow thing didn't happen. Damn crows!

this decision, taken with the voting rights decisions, is pointing this country in a direction backwards from where it took so long to arrive.
No. I don't agree. The ruling for this stands alone with Michigan. If some southern states start passing laws for a de facto segregation of their university system, they can't use this ruling to defend it. Now if this did happen in Southern States and the court ruled likewise, then there would be a problem.

Now I know this doesn't bother some people here because it will not affect them therefore fuck anyone it does...
Fuck 'em hard!!!
, but mark my words, this is but a harbinger of things to come and people of color will not be going back to the back of the bus.
I think this is a bit hyperbolic, from this ruling.

If the Supreme Court ruled otherwise, it would have made affirmative action compulsory.
 
The plaintiffs argued that referendums that were designed to harm one specific race were unconstitutional and found a court to agree based on a dubiously related precedent.

Everyone agrees with the bolded, even Scalia and Thomas in their concurrence.
 
What should be depressing is that 2 USSC justices are so unbound from logic and the law as to find that a law restoring equal protection under the law violates equal protection under the law.

The two dissenters did not argue that race-blind admissions policies are inherently unconstitutional. They agree that state university school boards should be free to enact race-blind admissions policies. What they object to is taking racial preferences, and only racial preferences, out of the school boards' hands, thus impermissibly putting race in its own special category.

I don't agree with the dissenters. (For one thing, section 26 is not only about race -- it also forbids preferences based on sex or national origin.) But it's not the requirement of equal protection that they object to in this case.
 
Last edited:
Does anyone here know why we have affirmative action in the first place?

To piss off conservatives? Oh, and to help erase the whole, we fucked with your lives and your progress was held back. Affirmative Action is a nudge-nudge / wink-wink go ahead in line because you should have been ahead in the line in the first place if that whole Jim Crow thing didn't happen. Damn crows!

Redressing past wrongs is part of it, but there's also the belief that a diverse (including racially diverse) student body enhances the students' educational experiences. That's why, for example, many historically black colleges are trying to attract more white students (sometimes even offering white-only scholarships) even though whites are not a historically disadvantaged group.
 
A word about Michigan.



Doing well on standardised testing is not 'affirmative action'. Legacy admissions are not affirmative action. They're a bad idea, but they're not affirmative action.

Discrimination is not a zero sum game. It's negative sum. One cannot reach back through time and repair the wrongs done to people long since dead, nor can deficiencies in the achievements of Black students K-12 be retroactively remedied.
 
A word about Michigan.



Doing well on standardised testing is not 'affirmative action'. Legacy admissions are not affirmative action. They're a bad idea, but they're not affirmative action.

Discrimination is not a zero sum game. It's negative sum. One cannot reach back through time and repair the wrongs done to people long since dead, nor can deficiencies in the achievements of Black students K-12 be retroactively remedied.
I read and hear that, but umm... affirmative action didn't start under Obama. It has been around for decades... we (whites) have survived. And a small number of people that had previous family generations fucked, were given the opportunity to succeed where the opportunity would have had to wait one or two more generations. The minority in that position has to take the opportunity by the nuts and squeeze success from it, so if they succeed, it is because they earned it. AA put them in the position to have a shot as success.

I find it absurd that people seem to have issues with that.
 
I read and hear that, but umm... affirmative action didn't start under Obama.

Whoever imagined that it did?

It has been around for decades... we (whites) have survived.

Antisemitism has been around for millennia and Jews have 'survived'. What has 'survival' got to do with it?

What does it mean to have 'survived' affirmative action? Why is harming some Whites and Asians okay, as long as Blacks and Latinos benefit from the harm? (Of course, they benefit personally but discrimination by race harms everyone overall, both morally and materially).

And a small number of people that had previous family generations fucked, were given the opportunity to succeed where the opportunity would have had to wait one or two more generations. The minority in that position has to take the opportunity by the nuts and squeeze success from it, so if they succeed, it is because they earned it. AA put them in the position to have a shot as success.

No: not discriminating against them would have let them have a shot at success. AA instead arbitrarily removes opportunities from some and gives them to others, based on the colour of their skin. AA continues a cycle of harm of discrimination by race.

I find it absurd that people seem to have issues with that.

I take issue with racist discrimination, yes. I believe arbitrary discrimination based on race is bad. I believe no policy, racist or otherwise, can undo the past, nor can it remedy failures of other systems.

I believe AA has harmed individual Asians and to a lesser extent individual Whites. No Whites in the economic elite (or person of any other race in the economic elite, for that matter) needs to lose a wink of sleep that AA will harm them: they and their children will, of course, be immune from its toxic effects. So, the burden of reconciliation (as if the past could be undone) falls squarely on smart kids from the unpreferred races, entering academically elite Universities and academically elite programs (law and medical school), where AA is most active.

I find it absurd that you don't have issues with it.
 
Whoever imagined that it did?
Dude... the statement was clearly meant as a build up to the following statement.

It has been around for decades... we (whites) have survived.

Antisemitism has been around for millennia and Jews have 'survived'. What has 'survival' got to do with it?
Ok, not responding to anymore of this. You just seemed to compare the holocaust to a program that is designed to right generational retardation. Seriously!? Is that how awful your argument is, that you have to invoke antisemitism? That is Moore-Coulter turned up to 11.
 
Dude... the statement was clearly meant as a build up to the following statement.

It has been around for decades... we (whites) have survived.

Antisemitism has been around for millennia and Jews have 'survived'. What has 'survival' got to do with it?
Ok, not responding to anymore of this. You just seemed to compare the holocaust to a program that is designed to right generational retardation. Seriously!? Is that how awful your argument is, that you have to invoke antisemitism? That is Moore-Coulter turned up to 11.

I compared them. It was an analogy meant to illustrate why the word 'survived' is not an appropriate yardstick for whether a program is harmful or not. I did not equate them.

If my arguments were awful, I'd expect they'd be easily rebutted. Instead, all I ever get is

i) Wholesale denial that AA includes discrimination by race, when it is discrimination by race by definition. This attempt at denial appears to concede that discrimination by race is generally a bad thing.

ii) Wholesale denial that AA 'helps' some people by harming others, even though this is the only way AA can operate.

iii) An egregious and ubiquitous misunderstanding or ignorance of statistics. This I go out of my way to try and correct as I recognise the ideas invovled tend not to come naturally to people.
 
That's why, for example, many historically black colleges are trying to attract more white students (sometimes even offering white-only scholarships) even though whites are not a historically disadvantaged group.

That is ridiculous. Has a black student with better test scores who was held back for a white student to get in sued these colleges yet?
If the answer is no, what would one conclude? If the answer is yes, what would one conclude?
 
Back
Top Bottom