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Law and Race Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

2002

Michigan Law Review

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Law and Race

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 Causation Fallacy: Bakke And The Basic Arithmetic Of Selective Admissions, Goodwin Liu Mar 2002

The Causation Fallacy: Bakke And The Basic Arithmetic Of Selective Admissions, Goodwin Liu

Michigan Law Review

Last Term, the Supreme Court turned down two invitations to resolve the constitutionality of affirmative action in college and university admissions. In May 2001, the Court for the second time declined to review a Fifth Circuit decision holding that the use of racial preferences to achieve diversity in the student body serves no compelling interest. A few weeks later, the Court let stand a conflicting Ninth Circuit decision that upheld a .law school affirmative action policy on the ground that "educational diversity is a compelling governmental interest that meets the demands of strict scrutiny." The legal controversy over admissions preferences …