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Affirmative action

Law and Race

2011

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Law

Harvesting New Conceptions Of Equality: Opportunity, Results, And Neutrality, Cedric M. Powell Oct 2011

Harvesting New Conceptions Of Equality: Opportunity, Results, And Neutrality, Cedric M. Powell

Cedric M. Powell

This is a critical period in the Court’s history; there is a doctrinal shift from the Rehnquist Court’s colorblind constitutionalism to the Roberts Court’s post-racial universalism. The Fourteenth Amendment and Title VII have been inverted: under the Fourteenth Amendment, whites are the new discrete and insular minority to be protected from a result-oriented “racial” process; and, under Title VII, disparate impact is irrelevant in the absence of a “strong basis in evidence” to believe that there will be liability. In a very direct way, the Court’s race jurisprudence privileges reverse discrimination suits. To advance the critique of the Court’s doctrinal …

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Racing Towards Colorblindness: Stereotype Threat And The Myth Of Meritocracy, Jonathan Feingold Oct 2011

Racing Towards Colorblindness: Stereotype Threat And The Myth Of Meritocracy, Jonathan Feingold

Faculty Scholarship

Education law and policy debates often focus on whether college and graduate school admissions offices should take race into account. Those who advocate for a strictly merits-based regime emphasize the importance of colorblindness. The call for colorblind admissions relies on the assumption that our current admissions criteria are fair measures, which accurately capture talent and ability. Recent social science research into standardized testing suggests that this is not the case.

Part I of this Article explores the psychological phenomenon of stereotype threat. Stereotype threat has been shown to detrimentally impact the performance of individuals from negatively stereotyped groups when performing …

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The Promise Of Grutter: Diverse Interactions At The University Of Michigan Law School, Meera E. Deo Sep 2011

The Promise Of Grutter: Diverse Interactions At The University Of Michigan Law School, Meera E. Deo

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

In Grutter v. Bollinger, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld affirmative action at the University of Michigan Law School on the grounds of educational diversity. Yet the Court's assumption that admitting diverse students into law school would result in improved race relations, livelier classroom conversations, and better professional outcomes for students has never been empirically tested. This Article relies on survey and focus group data collected at the University of Michigan Lav School campus itself in March 2010 to examine not only whether, but how diversity affects learning. The data indicate both that there are sufficient numbers of students of color …

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