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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Majoritarian Difficulty: Affirmative Action, Sodomy, And Supreme Court Politics, Darren Lenard Hutchinson
The Majoritarian Difficulty: Affirmative Action, Sodomy, And Supreme Court Politics, Darren Lenard Hutchinson
UF Law Faculty Publications
Contemporary debates over recent Court decisions provide a rich context to weigh claims of judicial countermajoritarianism against the work of constitutional theorists, critical legal scholars, and political scientists who view the Court as a majoritarian body. In particular, the Court's decisions in Lawrence v. Texas, Gratz v. Bollinger, and Grutter v. Bollinger have reignited arguments concerning the propriety of judicial review. Prominent judicial commentators have described the decisions as important, and unexpected, civil rights victories from a markedly conservative Court. Liberal and conservative scholars and activists seem to agree with this description: mainline civil rights organizations and liberal scholars view …
Diversity: The Red Herring Of Equal Protection, Sharon E. Rush
Diversity: The Red Herring Of Equal Protection, Sharon E. Rush
UF Law Faculty Publications
Couching the constitutional inquiry in cases like Bakke and VMI in the context of integration also puts in perspective the diversity justification. Affirmative action policies are constitutional because they integrate state programs. Integration on the basis of race and sex also diversifies state programs. In contrast, attempts to justify sex-segregation in state programs by arguing the policy promotes diversity is irrelevant to an equal protection analysis. Voluntarily created all-female schools should be constitutional because they promote the equal citizenship of women without damaging the equal citizenship stature of men. This is true for voluntarily race-segregated programs for minorities; as well. …