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Affirmative action

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Radical Reconstruction: (Re) Embracing Affirmative Action In Private Employment, Hina B. Shah Jan 2019

Radical Reconstruction: (Re) Embracing Affirmative Action In Private Employment, Hina B. Shah

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The history of employment in this country is the history of racism. Using public and private mechanisms as well as violence to devise and enforce segregation and preferential treatment, the white male institutionalized an unprecedented advantage in the labor market. Yet this is rarely acknowledged as a factor in the current widening economic disparity between whites and blacks. Today, many white Americans, cloaked in the myth of colorblindness and meritocracy, refuse to see the persistence of racial prejudice, disadvantage and discrimination in the labor market.

This article is a call for a radical reconstruction of the private labor market through …


Stepping Through Grutter's Open Doors: What The University Of Michigan Affirmative Action Cases Mean For Race-Conscious Government Decisionmaking, Helen Norton Jan 2005

Stepping Through Grutter's Open Doors: What The University Of Michigan Affirmative Action Cases Mean For Race-Conscious Government Decisionmaking, Helen Norton

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In Grutter, a majority of the Court for the first time identified an instrumental justification for race-based government decisionmaking as compelling - specifically, a public law school's interest in attaining a diverse student body. Grutter not only recognized the value of diversity in higher education, but left open the possibility that the Court might find similar justifications compelling as well.

The switch to instrumental justifications for affirmative action appears a strategic response to the Court's narrowing of the availability of remedial rationales. A number of thoughtful commentators, however, have reacted to this trend with concern and even dismay, questioning …