Law Commons^™

What Is Affirmative Action?, John Valery White

Scholarly Works

There is no rigorous definition of affirmative action. This Article argues that this remarkable circumstance has distorted and undercut American antidiscrimination law.

Though affirmative action is vigorously and widely debated, it has not been defined in the rigorous manner legal commentators would normally demand. Rather, commentators have deferred to policymakers' descriptions of affirmative action programs and employed those “definitions” to set the terms of policy debates over the propriety of affirmative action. Typically, commentators take for granted that affirmative action is “discriminatory” and seek to justify its use in certain contexts. This approach is also prominent in the United States …

What Does Bakke Require Of Law Schools? The Salt Board Of Governors Statement, Howard Lesnick

Statements

In 1979, Professor Lesnick wrote a statement for the Board of Governors of the Society of American Law Teachers after the Supreme Court's decision in University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978). The question addressed in the statement is: What changes (if any) in minority-admissions programs are university law schools now obligated to make to comply with the Supreme Court's decision in Bakke?