Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is sworn in on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, July 13, 2009, during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. (AP Photo/Pool, George Bridges)
Does race matter? Is discrimination an issue? On April 22, 2014, in a 6-2 decision the Supreme Court ruled, it isn’t. It isn’t perhaps for those who have never experienced what occurs daily. In every second of the day we have opportunities to see what is beyond our vision. Let us open our eyes and also listen. We thank Justice Sotomayor for her recitation of the dissenting opinion.
Race matters. Race matters in part because of the long history of racial minorities’ being denied access to the political process.
Race also matters because of persistent racial inequality in society—inequality that cannot be ignored and that has produced stark socioeconomic disparities.
And race matters for reasons that really are only skin deep, that cannot be discussed any other way, and that cannot be wished away. Race matters to a young man’s view of society when he spends his teenage years watching others tense up as he passes, no matter the neighborhood where he grew up. Race matters to a young woman’s sense of self when she states her hometown, and then is pressed, “No, where are you really from?” regardless of how many generations her family has been in the country. Race matters to a young person addressed by a stranger in a foreign language, which he does not understand because only English was spoken at home. Race matters because of the slights, the snickers, the silent judgments that reinforce that most crippling of thoughts: “I do not belong here.”
Might we consider how a student feels when he or she seeks admission? It could begin with an application to a charter school, or perhaps it is Harvard. Black students will tell you that they understand, “race matters.” “Our voices often go unheard on this campus, our experiences are devalued, our presence is questioned.” These are the words of a Black Harvard student the Supreme Court never heard or considered before reaching their decision.
“There is a feeling a lot of black students share, which is that even though you got a letter of acceptance, you’re never fully accepted on this campus,” said Matsuda-Lawrence.
In response to an article, “Affirmative Dissatisfaction, written by a white student and printed in the Harvard Crimson in November 2012 a campaign was created. “I Too Am Harvard” hoped to give voice to what the six Justices ignored….”Race matters,” perhaps more so today, now that we are left to grapple with this ruling.
Supreme Court Upholds Michigan’s Ban On Affirmative Action
The Supreme Court ruled that a Michigan ballot initiative to ban racial preferences in college admissions is constitutional, overturning a lower court decision.
In a 6-2 decision Tuesday, the justices said the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals was wrong to set aside the voter-approved ban as discriminatory.
Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority decision in the case Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, while Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Stephen Breyer authored concurring opinions. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented, and Justice Elena Kagan recused herself from the case.
Kennedy stressed that the case was not about the constitutionality or merits of the race-conscious admission policies of colleges and universities, but instead hinged on whether voters in the state may choose to prohibit consideration of such preferences.
“Here, the principle that the consideration of race in admissions is permissible when certain conditions are met is not being challenged,” Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.
He said noting in the Constitution or the court’s prior cases allowed judges to undermine the will of voters.
“The decision by Michigan voters reflects the ongoing national dialogue about such practices,” Kennedy wrote.
The Michigan ballot initiative, known as Proposal 2, was passed in 2006. The Sixth Circuit overturned Proposal 2 in 2012. (Update at 11:50 a.m. ET: The San Jose Mercury News says the case has “major implications” for a similar ban, known as Proposition 209, that was based by California voters in 1996.)
Justice Sotomayor, who read her dissent from the bench, noted that “without checks, democratically approved legislation can oppress minority groups.
“For that reason, our Constitution places limits on what a majority of the people may do,” she said. “This case implicates one such limit: the guarantee of equal protection of the laws.”
The American Civil Liberties Union, NAACP Legal Defense Fund and others had challenged Proposal 2, saying it unfairly and unconstitutionally rigs the admissions system against minority students.
“Minority students and others who support a broadly diverse student body should not have to overturn a constitutional amendment simply to have their voices heard in the admissions process when everyone else can go directly to the university,” the ACLU said in a fact sheet about the case.
As NPR’s Nina Totenberg reported in October, when oral arguments in the case were heard, “a clear majority [of the justices] … sounded ready … to uphold the Michigan ban.”
1, 551 U. S. 701 (2007). See post, at 6, n. 2 (SCALIA, J., concurring in judgment); post, at 23, n. 9 (SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting). The plurality today addresses that issue, explaining that the race-conscious action in Parents Involved was unconstitutional given the absence of a showing of prior de jure segregation. Parents Involved, supra, at 720–721 (majority opinion), 736 (plurality opinion); see ante, at 9. Today’s plurality notes that the Court in Seattle “assumed” the constitutionality of the busing remedy at issue there, “ ‘even absent a finding of prior de jure segregation.’ ” Ante, at 10 (quoting Seattle, supra, at 472, n. 15). The assumption on which Seattle proceeded did not constitute a finding sufficient to justify the race-conscious action in Parents Involved, though it is doubtless pertinent in analyzing Seattle. “As this Court held in Parents Involved, the [Seattle] school board’s purported remedial action would not be permissible today absent a showing of de jure segregation,” but “we must understand Seattle as Seattle understood itself.” Ante, at 9–10 (emphasis added).
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