US denies little girl college because she is not black enough

Discussion in 'Latest US & World News' started by Marshal, Oct 11, 2012.

  1. Marshal

    Marshal New Member Past Donor

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    What's the word? Shockingly... Awful.


    http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...t-affirmative-action-20121011,0,1718872.story

    Supreme Court skeptical of University of Texas affirmative action - latimes.com

    WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court's conservative justices signaled Wednesday they were likely to strike down a University of Texas affirmative action policy, but did not make clear how far they might go in outlawing the use of race in admissions at colleges and universities.

    From his opening question, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said he was troubled by having students "check a box" to designate race or ethnicity and by allowing officials to decide who is admitted based on this factor.

    "Should someone who is one-quarter Hispanic check the Hispanic box?" he asked. When the lawyer for the university said it was up to the student to decide, Roberts tried again: "What about one-eighth?"

    The case, brought by a white student who was rejected, could lead to a ruling requiring top colleges and universities to use "race neutral" policies to achieve campus diversity. Texas, for example, has required its universities, including the Austin campus where the case originated, to admit students who graduate at the top of their high school class, without regard to race or ethnicity.

    Thanks to that 1997 law, about 30% of the new freshmen at the University of Texas were Latino or black. That success has undercut the university's defense of its separate and smaller affirmative action policy.

    Roberts joined Justice Antonin Scalia in questioning the university's claim that it needs affirmative action to have a "critical mass" of minority students in its classes.

    "How do they decide?" Scalia asked. "Somebody walks in the room and looks them over to see who looks Asian, who looks black, who looks Hispanic?"

    Since 2006, when Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. replaced Sandra Day O'Connor, the court has had five justices who are skeptical of affirmative action. But Wednesday marked the first time since then that the high court had heard a constitutional challenge to a race-based college admissions policy.

    Alito said he was surprised to learn that the Texas university seeks blacks and Latinos from affluent families. "I thought the whole purpose of affirmative action was to help students who come from underprivileged backgrounds," he said.

    He was referring to a passage in the University of Texas brief that said the university may wish to give preference to a black student with professional parents and from a good Dallas-area high school over a black or Latino who earned top grades at an overwhelmingly black or Latino high school.

    Under the Texas law, the university must admit top graduates of all state high schools. That policy has succeeded in steadily raising the percentage of Latino and black students. In the last two years, more than 80% of these minority students won admission through the law rather than affirmative action.

    For a number of years, the law granted automatic admission to those in the top 10% of their class, but at the moment it is the top 8%.

    But after the Supreme Court upheld affirmative action in 2003, Texas officials opted to use a race-based policy for about one-fourth of the entering class. This allowed the university to admit qualified minority students who did not graduate in the top of their class.

    Alito said he did not understand why the university would give a "leg up" to a minority from a wealthy family over a similarly qualified white or Asian student who came from a middle-class family.

    "We want minorities from different backgrounds," replied Gregory Garre, the Washington attorney for the University of Texas.

    "So what you're saying is that what counts is race above all else," said Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who is likely to cast the decisive vote in the case. "You want underprivileged of a certain race and privileged of a certain race."

    Joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, whose opposition to affirmative action is well known, Kennedy and the court's conservative bloc could strike down the Texas approach and put new limits on affirmative action in colleges and universities.

    During the hourlong argument, the justices did not hint whether they would go so far as to overturn their 2003 ruling upholding affirmative action at the University of Michigan and forbid the use of race entirely. Retired Justice O'Connor was in the courtroom to listen to the argument, as if to remind her former colleagues of the importance of precedents.

    But Kennedy has steadily opposed affirmative action and insisted before that school officials try race neutral policies, such as the Texas law, to achieve diversity.

    Bert Rein, the attorney for Abigail Fisher, the rejected white applicant, sounded that theme. He said there was no need for a race-based affirmative action policy at the University of Texas because large numbers of Latinos and blacks were admitted as top high school graduates.

    "Race should have been a last resort. It was a first resort," Rein said.

    U.S. Solicitor Gen. Donald Verrilli Jr. cautioned the justices about reversing course on affirmative action. He said colleges and universities had adopted admissions policies that allow for a limited consideration of race based on the court's rulings.

    College officials should be allowed the flexibility to design admissions policies that bring a diverse group of students to their campuses, he said.

    It probably will be several months before the court hands down an opinion in Fisher vs. University of Texas. Regardless of the outcome, it is unlikely to affect states such as California, Washington, Florida and Michigan, where race-based affirmative action is already prohibited.

    Only eight justices will decide the case because Justice Elena Kagan, a former solicitor general, withdrew. The three remaining liberal justices spent part of Wednesday's argument time suggesting the court should throw out Fisher's case because she had graduated from Louisiana State University.
     
  2. SpaceCricket79

    SpaceCricket79 New Member Past Donor

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    All race based scholarships should be abolished, they're a joke.
     
  3. SFJEFF

    SFJEFF New Member

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    So you want the government to control private scholarships?
     
  4. ThirdTerm

    ThirdTerm Well-Known Member

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    Britain's universities do not have affirmative action policies or racial quota to admit black or Hispanic applicants but diversity in higher education is achieved naturally and Cambridge University has accepted minority students since the 19th century. Universities in California have already abandoned any consideration of race in college admissions even though it resulted in the significant rise in the number of Asian students and Texas is likely to follow suit but Obama would be blamed for ending affirmative action on his watch, which is another black mark on his presidency.
     
  5. DonGlock26

    DonGlock26 New Member Past Donor

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    They control private real estate transactions, right? You are just fine with that, right progressive? But, private scholarships for blacks, and you suddenly turn into Ayn Rand.

    This is the problem with progressives. They have no moral, principles, or ethical foundation except for the redistribution of wealth and sexual license. Everything else is up for debate depending on whether is helps the Left politically or not.

    Today, Jeff wants freedom from gov't intervention in education and tomorrow he'll want the federal gov't telling elementary schools how many milliliters of grape juice a child should drink.
     
  6. Cicero1964

    Cicero1964 New Member

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    Finally they are addressing government mandated racism that is Affirmative Action. It’s time they stop injecting racism into our society.
     
  7. fiddlerdave

    fiddlerdave Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Centuries of LEGAL and GOVERNMENTAL SPONSORED racism until the 1980s is what IS "injecting racism into our society".

    Colleges are filled with procedures and policies that give the children of previous students a preference, aside from the FACT that the children of educated parents are better educated too, something that was denied minorities in the USA since the beginning.

    When NO ONE who is alive has been BANNED from college and work by LAWS for their race, THEN we can start saying we are a color blind society.
     
  8. dixon76710

    dixon76710 Well-Known Member

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    Well, its the University of Texas who is denying the girl admissions and we will see if the"US" puts a stop to it.
     
  9. Marshal

    Marshal New Member Past Donor

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    TOP TEN REPUBLICAN REPLIES TO DEMOCRAT SOCIAL PROGRAMS

    10. Lighthouses - You want government to control shipping lanes?

    9. Roads/Stoplights - You want government to control transportation?

    8. Food Quality - You want government to tell us what we can eat?

    7. Internet Neutrality- You want government to mandate how the Internet works?

    6. Military Oversight - You want government to fight our wars for us?

    5. Electricity - You want poor people to have electricity? (1950's)

    4. Education - You actually want to fund this thing?

    3. Proof of Safety - That product is not proven unsafe, therefore it's permitted.

    2. School Lunch - Central kitchens should manufacture and ship the fast food.

    And the number 1 excuse posited by Republicans in regard to Democrat social improvements:

    1. The government that governs least, governs best!

     
  10. kenrichaed

    kenrichaed Banned

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    The Court has already decided a couple of cases against Affirmative Action and it appears this one will knock it down even some more. The Court seems to think its time to start ending it and I agree with them. Its a necessary step to full assimilation of other races into American culture and in many cases simply is not fair to everyone.
     

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