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Fourteenth Amendment

Affirmative action

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Full-Text Articles in Law

"Framing Affirmative Action", Kimberlé W. Crenshaw Jan 2006

"Framing Affirmative Action", Kimberlé W. Crenshaw

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

With the passage of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (“MCRI”), Michigan joins California and Washington to constitute the new postaffirmative action frontier. For proponents such as Ward Connerly, affirmative action is on the edge of extinction. Connerly plans to carry his campaign against what he calls “racial preferences” to eight states in 2008, scoring a decisive Super-Tuesday repudiation of a social policy that he portrays as the contemporary face of racial discrimination. On the other side of the issue, proponents of affirmative action are struggling to regroup, fearful that the confluence of lukewarm support among Democratic allies, messy presidential politics …


Post-Admissions Educational Programming In A Post-Grutter World: A Response To Professor Brown, Evan H. Caminker Jan 2006

Post-Admissions Educational Programming In A Post-Grutter World: A Response To Professor Brown, Evan H. Caminker

Articles

When asked to provide commentary on another scholar's reflections on Grutterl and Gratz and affirmative action, I am usually struck by two fears. First, because so much ink has been spilled on this topic, I worry the main presenter will have nothing new and interesting to say. Today this worry has been put to rest; I am so pleased that Professor Dorothy Brown offers a number of novel and intriguing observations and, in the end, advances a novel and intriguing proposal about the role Critical Race Theory ought to play in our nation's law school classrooms. Second, for the same …


Justifying The Disparate Impact Standard Under A Theory Of Equal Citizenship, Rebecca S. Giltner Jan 2005

Justifying The Disparate Impact Standard Under A Theory Of Equal Citizenship, Rebecca S. Giltner

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Part I of this Note outlines the limitations on congressional power under Section V and their implications for justifying the constitutionality of the disparate impact standard. Part II explores the prohibition of intentional discrimination as a justification for the disparate impact standard and argues that justifying the disparate impact standard through this theory, as some courts currently do, may eventually narrow disparate impact doctrine and thus constrain the possibilities for substantive equality in employment. This Part also analogizes the limits of using an intentional discrimination rationale to justify the disparate impact standard to the limits of using the diversity rationale …


Two "Wrongs" Do/Can Make A Right: Remembering Mathematics, Physics, & Various Legal Analogies (Two Negatives Make A Positive; Are Remedies Wrong?) The Law Has Made Him Equal, But Man Has Not, John C. Duncan Jr Jan 2005

Two "Wrongs" Do/Can Make A Right: Remembering Mathematics, Physics, & Various Legal Analogies (Two Negatives Make A Positive; Are Remedies Wrong?) The Law Has Made Him Equal, But Man Has Not, John C. Duncan Jr

Journal Publications

This article demonstrates the incomplete logic and inconsistent legal reasoning used in the argument against affirmative action. The phrase "two wrongs don't make a right" is often heard in addressing various attempts to equalize, to balance, and to correct the acknowledged wrongs of slavery and segregation and their derivative effects. Yet, "two wrongs do/can make a right" has a positive connotation. This article reviews the history of societal and judicial wrongs against Blacks, as well as the evolution of the narrowing in legal reasoning concerning discrimination against minorities, including Blacks. Next, the legal reasoning behind legacy programs will be reviewed …


The Majoritarian Difficulty: Affirmative Action, Sodomy, And Supreme Court Politics, Darren Lenard Hutchinson Jan 2005

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 …


Grutter V. Bollinger: This Generation's Brown V. Board Of Education, Michelle Adams Jan 2004

Grutter V. Bollinger: This Generation's Brown V. Board Of Education, Michelle Adams

Articles

At first blush, Grutter appears to be a deviation from the body of the Court's recent affirmative action jurisprudence: it says "yes" where the other cases said "no." But it is not so clear that Grutter is a deviation from current law. Instead, it might be seen as consistent with it, in that the justification for the racial preference recognized in Grutter transcended the justifications offered in the previous cases, and the method used to achieve that end, "race as a factor," diffused rather than highlighted race. From this perspective, Grutter addressed several concerns that had troubled the Court for …


A Glimpse Behind And Beyond Grutter, Evan H. Caminker Jan 2004

A Glimpse Behind And Beyond Grutter, Evan H. Caminker

Articles

Many people have suggested that the recent battle over affirmative action was a defining moment for the contemporary relevance of Brown v. Board of Education and that it would determine the promise and potential for widespread societal integration. In my remarks, I want to comment upon a couple of comparisons and links between the Brown, Bakke, Grutter, and Gratz cases.


Bolling Alone, Richard A. Primus Jan 2004

Bolling Alone, Richard A. Primus

Articles

Under the doctrine of reverse incorporation, generally identified with the Supreme Court's decision in Bolling v. Sharpe, equal protection binds the federal government even though the Equal Protection Clause by its terms is addressed only to states. Since Bolling, however, the courts have almost never granted relief to litigants claiming unconstitutional racial discrimination by the federal government. Courts have periodically found unconstitutional federal discrimination on nonracial grounds such as sex and alienage, and reverse incorporation has also limited the scope of affirmative action. But in the presumed core area of preventing federal discrimination against racial minorities, Boiling has virtually no …


Equal Protection And Disparate Impact: Round Three, Richard A. Primus Jan 2003

Equal Protection And Disparate Impact: Round Three, Richard A. Primus

Articles

Prior inquiries into the relationship between equal protection and disparate impact have focused on whether equal protection entails a disparate impact standard and whether laws prohibiting disparate impacts can qualify as legislation enforcing equal rotection. In this Article, Professor Primus focuses on a third question: whether equal protection affirmatively forbids the use of statutory disparate impact standards. Like affirmative action, a statute restricting racially disparate impacts is a race-conscious mechanism designed to reallocate opportunities from some racial groups to others. Accordingly, the same individualist view of equal protection that has constrained the operation of affirmative action might also raise questions …


A Rational Basis For Affirmative Action: A Shaky But Classical Liberal Defense, Richard A. Epstein Aug 2002

A Rational Basis For Affirmative Action: A Shaky But Classical Liberal Defense, Richard A. Epstein

Michigan Law Review

I am honored to participate in a symposium on the occasion of the lOOth anniversary of one of America's preeminent law reviews. I am saddened, however, to write, at what should be a moment of celebration, with the knowledge that both the Law School and the College of Literature, Science and the Arts are enmeshed in extensive litigation over the critical and explosive issue of affirmative action. To find striking evidence of the deep split of learned judicial views on this issue, it is necessary to look no further than the sequence of opinions in Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter …


Some Effects Of Identity-Based Social Movements On Constitutional Law In The Twentieth Century, William N. Eskridge Jr. Aug 2002

Some Effects Of Identity-Based Social Movements On Constitutional Law In The Twentieth Century, William N. Eskridge Jr.

Michigan Law Review

What motivated big changes in constitutional law doctrine during the twentieth century? Rarely did important constitutional doctrine or theory change because of formal amendments to the document's text, and rarer still because scholars or judges "discovered" new information about the Constitution's original meaning. Precedent and common law reasoning were the mechanisms by which changes occurred rather than their driving force. My thesis is that most twentieth century changes in the constitutional protection of individual rights were driven by or in response to the great identity-based social movements ("IBSMs") of the twentieth century. Race, sex, and sexual orientation were markers of …


The Diversity And Remedial Interests In University Admissions Programs, Kathryne Raines Jan 2002

The Diversity And Remedial Interests In University Admissions Programs, Kathryne Raines

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.


Constitutional Law: Affirmative Action In The Public Sector: The Admissibility Of Post-Enactment Evidence Of Discrimination To Provide A Compelling Governmental Interest, Andrew C. Jayne Jan 2002

Constitutional Law: Affirmative Action In The Public Sector: The Admissibility Of Post-Enactment Evidence Of Discrimination To Provide A Compelling Governmental Interest, Andrew C. Jayne

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.


A General Theory Of Cultural Diversity, Steven A. Ramirez Jan 2001

A General Theory Of Cultural Diversity, Steven A. Ramirez

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article seeks to extend the analysis of these developments in the corporate world to anti-discrimination law under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This Article will show that discrimination based upon cultural insights or experiences is distinct from race discrimination and will articulate a general theory of why and under what circumstances this holds true. The difference between culture-based discrimination and using culture as a proxy for race (Which would then be race discrimination) requires a careful and non-mythological understanding of what race is, and what race is not. Moreover, showing that culture discrimination is not prohibited …


The American 'Legal' Dilemma: Colorblind I/Colorblind Ii--The Rules Have Changed Again: A Semantic Apothegmatic Permutation, John C. Duncan Jr Jan 2000

The American 'Legal' Dilemma: Colorblind I/Colorblind Ii--The Rules Have Changed Again: A Semantic Apothegmatic Permutation, John C. Duncan Jr

Journal Publications

"Our Constitution is colorblind" initially meant that white majority preferences could not and should not be reflected in government action. The maxim now means race should not be reflected at all in government action. The answer to racism lies somewhere between well-reasoned "blind" hope and historically-proven skepticism. Part I of this Article discusses the ideal of the colorblind society; Part II discusses what this Article deems as Colorblind I. Part III places each colorblind argument in perspective, and seeks to illustrate that the concept of colorblindness could be an ideal, but has rather become meaningless rhetoric in an endless racial …


Race, Class, Caste…? Rethinking Affirmative Action, Clark D. Cunningham, N.R. Madhava Menon Mar 1999

Race, Class, Caste…? Rethinking Affirmative Action, Clark D. Cunningham, N.R. Madhava Menon

Michigan Law Review

Many who oppose affirmative action programs in the United States because they use "racial" categories such as black, African American, or Latino, claim that equally effective and more equitable programs can be developed using only class categories, such as "low income." A key test case for the "race v. class" debate is admission to law schools, made urgent by recent legal prohibitions on the use of "race" in the admission procedures to state universities in California, Washington, and Texas. An empirical study by Linda Wightman, the former director of research for the Law School Admissions Council (LSAC), has shown that …


Affirmative Action, Caste, And Cultural Comparisons, Cass R. Sunstein Mar 1999

Affirmative Action, Caste, And Cultural Comparisons, Cass R. Sunstein

Michigan Law Review

What is permitted, and what is prohibited, by the equality principle of a liberal democracy? Does affirmative action run afoul of that principle? And where should we look to answer these questions? Many critics of affirmative action take it as axiomatic that affirmative action violates the equality principle. But this is far from clear. Every law classifies. The current law of equality itself classifies by, for example, treating discrimination on the basis of race differently from discrimination on the basis of age. No one thinks that the law of equality is, for this reason, inconsistent with the Equal Protection Clause. …


Minority Preferences Reconsidered, Terrance Sandalow Jan 1999

Minority Preferences Reconsidered, Terrance Sandalow

Reviews

During the academic year 1965-66, at the height of the civil rights movement, the University of Michigan Law School faculty looked around and saw not a single African-American student. The absence of any black students was not, it should hardly need saying, attributable to a policy of purposeful exclusion. A black student graduated from the Law School as early as 1870, and in the intervening years a continuous flow of African-American students, though not a large number, had been admitted and graduated. Some went on to distinguished careers in the law.


Caste, Class, And Equal Citizenship, William E. Forbath Jan 1999

Caste, Class, And Equal Citizenship, William E. Forbath

Michigan Law Review

There is a familiar egalitarian constitutional tradition and another we have largely forgotten. The familiar one springs from Brown v. Board of Education; its roots lie in the Reconstruction era. Court-centered and countermajoritarian, it takes aim at caste and racial subordination. The forgotten one also originated with Reconstruction, but it was a majoritarian tradition, addressing its arguments to lawmakers and citizens, not to courts. Aimed against harsh class inequalities, it centered on decent work and livelihoods, social provision, and a measure of economic independence and democracy. Borrowing a phrase from its Progressive Era proponents, I will call it the social …


Hopwood, Equal Protection, And Affirmative Action: Can Anyone's Ox Be Gored?, David J. Jannuzzi Jan 1998

Hopwood, Equal Protection, And Affirmative Action: Can Anyone's Ox Be Gored?, David J. Jannuzzi

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.


Diversity: The Red Herring Of Equal Protection, Sharon E. Rush Oct 1997

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. …


Race, Redistricting And A Republican Poll Tax: The Supreme Court's Voting Rights Decisions Of The 1995-96 Term, Frank Parker Jan 1997

Race, Redistricting And A Republican Poll Tax: The Supreme Court's Voting Rights Decisions Of The 1995-96 Term, Frank Parker

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.


Reconsidering Strict Scrutiny Of Affirmative Action, Brent E. Simmons Jan 1996

Reconsidering Strict Scrutiny Of Affirmative Action, Brent E. Simmons

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Under the artificial constraints of strict scrutiny, however, the courts are free to veto the government's choice of more effective, race-conscious means. The Supreme Court's unfortunate and ill-conceived adoption of strict scrutiny as the constitutional standard for reviewing race-conscious affirmative action should be reconsidered for several reasons. This Article examines those reasons.


Voting Rights Debate, Charles Stephen Ralston, Michael A. Carvin Jan 1994

Voting Rights Debate, Charles Stephen Ralston, Michael A. Carvin

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.


Affirmative Action, Douglas Scherer, John Dunne Jan 1991

Affirmative Action, Douglas Scherer, John Dunne

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.


Progressive And Conservative Constitutionalism, Robin West Feb 1990

Progressive And Conservative Constitutionalism, Robin West

Michigan Law Review

The article's central thesis is that the understandings of the constitutional tradition most central to both paradigms are determined by sometimes implicit, but more often explicit, political dispositions toward various forms of social and private power, and the normative authority to which social and private power gives rise. Very broadly, conservative constitutionalists view private or social normative authority as the legitimate and best source of guidance for state action; accordingly, they view both the Constitution and constitutional adjudication as means of preserving and protecting that authority and the power that undergirds it against either legislative or judicial encroachment. Progressive constitutionalists, …


The Future Of Minority Set-Aside Programs After City Of Richmond, Judy Kerczewski Kranjc Jan 1990

The Future Of Minority Set-Aside Programs After City Of Richmond, Judy Kerczewski Kranjc

Cleveland State Law Review

One type of controversial affirmative action plan is the minority set-aside program. This Note will focus on the future of these plans in the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision, City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co. First, an examination of the background of affirmative action leading up to set-asides is in order. Second, this Note will analyze City of Richmond and the constitutional and social issues at stake, balancing whether minority set-asides are needed with the recognition that discrimination and lack of economic opportunity for minorities still exists in our society. Finally, the Note will examine several lower …


Reconstructing Section Five Of The Fourteenth Amendment To Assist Impoverished Children, James Wilson Jan 1990

Reconstructing Section Five Of The Fourteenth Amendment To Assist Impoverished Children, James Wilson

Cleveland State Law Review

This article maintains that the Supreme Court's most recent affirmative action decisions, City of Richmond v. JA. Croson, Co. and Metro Broadcasting, Inc. v. F.C.C. provide a surprising opportunity for the Court to offer constitutional protection to many Americans who are currently under protected, particularly to poor children. This Article will argue that the Richmond/Metro double standard is acceptable in such difficult areas as affirmative action, particularly if the Court also adopts this Article's primary proposal that the Court should sometimes permit Congress to "dilute" Supreme Court decisions. This Article shall explore this proposed doctrine of limited dilution by applying …


Employment Discrimination, Charles Stephen Ralston, Paul Kamenar, William Bradford Reynolds, Gail Wright-Sirmans Jan 1989

Employment Discrimination, Charles Stephen Ralston, Paul Kamenar, William Bradford Reynolds, Gail Wright-Sirmans

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.


Affirmative Action And The Legislative History Of The Fourteenth Amendment, Eric Schnapper Jan 1985

Affirmative Action And The Legislative History Of The Fourteenth Amendment, Eric Schnapper

Articles

This article contends that the legislative history of the fourteenth amendment is not only relevant to but dispositive of the legal dispute over the constitutional standards applicable to race-conscious affirmative action plans. From the closing days of the Civil War until the end of civilian Reconstruction some five years later, Congress adopted a series of social welfare programs whose benefits were expressly limited to blacks. These programs were generally open to all blacks, not only to recently freed slaves, and were adopted over repeatedly expressed objections that such racially exclusive measures were unfair to whites. The race-conscious Reconstruction programs were …