Court strikes down...ban on race and gender consideration?

http://www.detnews.com/article/20110701/...admissions

 Spoiler

Court strikes down Michigan ban on race in college admissions
Jennifer Chambers and Oralandar Brand-Williams/ The Detroit News
Detroit— Michigan's ban on using race and gender as a factor in admission to public colleges and universities was overturned today by a federal appeals court, which said the voter-approved measure harms minorities and is unconstitutional.
The 2-1 decision struck down Proposal 2, the 2006 law that had forced the University of Michigan and other state schools to revise their admission policies. The judges ruled that the law violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
The court in particular objected to the inclusion of the voter-approved ban in the Michigan Constitution in its 59-page ruling.
"Proposal 2 reorders the political process in Michigan to place special burdens on minority interests," judges R. Guy Cole Jr. and Martha Craig Daughtrey said.
The ban, passed with 58 percent of the vote nearly five years ago, affected government hiring as well as college admissions.
In 2008, a federal judge in Detroit upheld the law, saying it was race-neutral.
George Washington, the chief attorney for the law's opponents, applauded the decision today.
"It's a great victory. It means affirmative action is legal again in college admissions. It means that thousands of talented black, Latino and Native Americans can go to our public universities," Washington said.
Washington said the ruling means universities can again consider and adopt affirmative action polices.
However, the ruling could be appealed, Washington said, to the U.S. Supreme Court or the entire panel of the 6th Circuit Appeals Court.
It was not immediately known if an appeal was planned.
Jennifer Gratz, who headed the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative ballot proposal, said she doesn't think the ruling is going to stand long term because the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled initiatives than ban ran preferences are constitutional.
"To me, this is the epitome of an activist court. These justices held onto this ruling for years and released it the day before the holiday weekend. They were hoping they would catch people off guard and not make the news," said, Gratz, director of the American Civil Rights Institute, a California-based group that advocates against affirmative action.
Ward Connerly, a former University of California regent who was a major backer of Proposal 2 and California's similar Proposition 209, said the ruling means the people have no right to govern their own institutions.
"It's saying the people have no right to insist that everyone be treated equality. It places the ultimate decision in the hands of the university — that they are supreme ones," Connerly said by phone from California. "It's a terrible, terrible decision that will not stand."
Shanta Driver, an attorney in the firm of Scheff, Washington and Driver, which brought the lawsuit to end the ban on affirmative action, said that in light of its victory in the Michigan case, the firm will turn its attention to California. Driver said they plan to file a lawsuit in the 9th U.S. Court of Appeals in California to strike down Proposition 209.
In a statement, University of Michigan spokeswoman Kelly Cunningham said U-M "is reviewing the possible implications of the court's decision, and recognizes that there may be further legal steps as well."
Opponents of Proposal 2 blamed the measure for declines in the percentage of minorities in U-M's freshman classes in the years immediately after the ruling.
Underrepresented minorities made up 12.6 percent of freshmen in fall 2006, the last class fully admitted before the passage of Proposal 2. The proportion of Hispanic, African-American and Native-American students dropped each year afterward, falling to 9.1 percent in 2009.
However, last fall, U-M reported its minority freshman enrollment had rebounded to 10.6 percent.
Gregory Creswell of Detroit gathered signatures for Proposal 2, the ballot initiative banning race and gender in college admissions. He said today he was dismayed by the decision.
"In a free society, politicians should not determine who wins and loses in life. It should be that person based on their merits. I don't want the government being for me because of my skin color or against me," Creswell said.
Victoria Sudul, 22, who just graduated from U-M with a degree in biology, said she supports the ruling overturning Proposal 2.
"I actually think it's a good thing," she said today in Ann Arbor. "I think it's just another window of opportunity for others. I think there are so many other scholarships and awards aimed toward other groups, why not affirmative action?
"I don't understand why people are trying to close the window of opportunity for education."
The activist group By Any Means Necessary, which pursued the lawsuit to overturn Proposal 2, scheduled news conferences at 2 p.m. at the Michigan Union in Ann Arbor and 4 p.m. at 645 Griswold in Detroit to discuss the ruling. The Detroit Branch of the NAACP also scheduled a news conference at 3:30 p.m. to address the decision.
Detroit News Staff Writers Robert Snell and Calvin Men and the Associated Press contributed.

jchambers@detnews.com
(313) 222-2269

Sorry it's a peach to read. Just the way it copy/pasted.

"Hurts minorites." No, I don't think so. I think it hurts the ones that don't deserve to be somewhere and are only getting there based on their minority status.

I have always felt that it is bullshit to have an advantage just because you're a "minority." I'm a white male and feel like I deserve the same chance. Where's my easier admission just because I'm gay?

I have always felt that it is bullshit to have an advantage just because you're a "minority." I'm a white male and feel like I deserve the same chance. Where's my easier admission just because I'm gay?

Me too. I try just as hard as any Asian, Hispanic, or Black student in my track yet so many of the awesome summer programs around me are only available to minorities or people with very low income. It's total crap, I deserve it just as much as they do. It's being limited for being born a certain way, essentially and some people walk around triumphantly like they really deserve it more than me because their skin color is darker.

It's funny because caucassions are becoming a minority, rather quickly too. But yeah it's quite silly that because I'm a girl, from mexico, that's also illegal, I qualify for the same benefits, for less cost, for college.

Giving race/ethnicity a basis for any consideration for college admission is stupid. College should be based on people who can handle the academia; people who will try their best in the school; people who will give back to the school.

If minorities have the same grade as a majority, there should be a conflict between who has the better personal statement, not which color do we have the least of. And this is coming from California, where almost every public university is at least 40% Asian. Hell i don't think Asians are even being considered minorities anymore because they aren't "disadvantaged". See all the minority statistics in the article? Do you see any Asians included in the statistics? Nope. If their application shows that they are a true fit for the school, then let them in and help them if they have financial issues. "underrepresented" my ass. ANYONE can go to college in American society. They just need to have the motivation to do it; to do all that is necessary to accomplish it.

Giving race/ethnicity a basis for any consideration for college admission is stupid. College should be based on people who can handle the academia; people who will try their best in the school; people who will give back to the school.

If minorities have the same grade as a majority, there should be a conflict between who has the better personal statement, not which color do we have the least of. And this is coming from California, where almost every public university is at least 40% Asian. Hell i don't think Asians are even being considered minorities anymore because they aren't "disadvantaged". See all the minority statistics in the article? Do you see any Asians included in the statistics? Nope. If their application shows that they are a true fit for the school, then let them in and help them if they have financial issues. "underrepresented" my ass. ANYONE can go to college in American society. They just need to have the motivation to do it; to do all that is necessary to accomplish it.

Not true

It's funny because caucassions are becoming a minority, rather quickly too.

Do they represent less of a percentage of the population then they did years before. Yes.

Are they anywhere near a minority

White alone (of which 26.7 million are White Hispanic and Latino Americans, see table below. Excluding these, this category comprises 63.7% or 196.8 million) 223,553,265 72.4%
Black or African American alone 38,929,319 12.6%
Some other race alone (Mestizo, Mulatto...) 19,107,368 6.2%
Asian alone 14,674,252 4.8%
Two or more races 9,009,073 2.9%
American Indian or Alaska Native alone 2,932,248 0.9%
Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander alone 540,013 0.2%
Total 308,745,538 100.0%

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic..._ethnicity)

No.

I'm actually all for this. Things like these were originally instituted because of the living standards still active post the civil rights movement. But it's been slowly fading and giving away free "stuff" because they are specifically a certain race is wrong, they should, at most, base it off living conditions.

Just one reference, by my standards 2050 seems pretty soon

Just one reference, by my standards 2050 seems pretty soon

You realize that's all minorities, which still doesn't make whites minorities. For whites to be a minority they'd have to represent less of a percentage of any other race not the total amount of other minorities. They still represent the majority population according to the article it's just that the total amount of minorities as in the X% of Hispanics, X% of blacks, etc will equal the percent of white people when added up.

Until ONE other race represents a greater percentage of the population then whites they're still the majority and this article doesn't say that's going to happen.

I misworded it, there is going to be more hispanic/african/asian children than whites soon.

They wouldn't have to have those considerations based on race/income if the schools were better. Schools in the US are awful, unless if you go to a private one.

I misworded it, there is going to be more hispanic/african/asian children than whites soon.

They're still not a minority.

They're still not a minority.

Whites will no longer as a whole be the dominant in the USA, they maybe as a single race, but that doesn't matter when more than half the country is minority, which is the issue.

Whites will no longer as a whole be the dominant in the USA, they maybe as a single race, but that doesn't matter when more than half the country is minority, which is the issue.

You do realize minorities aren't one race... In Africa, a white person living there would probably be called the minority because they represent a smaller percentage of the population. The term majority is just represents the "thing" with the largest percentage in comparisons to others it doesn't have to surpass the combine percentage of the others it's being compared to too represent a majority. I suppose if you compare it as whites VS non-whites then yeah they'd be a minority, but it doesn't work like that, most people, schools, bussiness, etc... look at races as separate not just whites VS non-whites.

You do realize minorities aren't one race... In Africa, a white person living there would probably be called the minority because they represent a smaller percentage of the population. The term majority is just represents the "thing" with the largest percentage in comparisons to others it doesn't have to surpass the combine percentage of the others it's being compared to too represent a majority. I suppose if you compare it as whites VS non-whites then yeah they'd be a minority, but it doesn't work like that, most people, schools, bussiness, etc... look at races as separate not just whites VS non-whites.

Court strikes down...ban on race and gender consideration. The problem here is half of america get's college tuition for being hispanic/black and being poor, while caucations aren't offered nearly as much, and are just to be assumed to be in better standing.

In cases like that it isnt "Black vs white" its "Minorities" vs whites because they get more credits, and essentially more slack.

Just like to say that I'm a very poor white male that went to a local public school, for nearly free. Though, my sister did receive much more aid and actually profited from just going to the same school. That I find odd, considering there are more women in said school than there are men, by about 1.5 to 1, but whatever. I've no idea on racial considerations, as we're both from the same race.

Court strikes down...ban on race and gender consideration. The problem here is half of america get's college tuition for being hispanic/black and being poor, while caucations aren't offered nearly as much, and are just to be assumed to be in better standing.

In cases like that it isnt "Black vs white" its "Minorities" vs whites because they get more credits, and essentially more slack.

There are under privilege white people who can get these things you know... Generally scholarships that are for poor people are for POOR PEOPLE, it's not exclusive by race, yes there are race based scholarships but the ones based on monetary standings aren't generally limited to race.

Even if you were right about them becoming what you consider to be minorities you're argument still fails because it's not a matter of population density it's a matter of history. Up to like the 1950's there was little to no opportunities for anyone other then a white man to gain any "real" success, so in all honesty these scholarships are trying to let other races catch up to the overwhelming "head start" that white people have had in America. Now before you say it, yes, not EVERY white person has this "head start" which is why in my original post I said these things should be based on economic standings only because most children can't be held for the finical stability of their parents and older ancestors.

I'm hispanic and I think this should be based ultimately on merit and upbringing. I had one too many debates with friends at school about this, I end up turning it around to them, "what if X race ended up getting an advantage because they're the minority?" then they say that's different.

I guess most people would want this if it works for them, if not, then they don't want it. so just get rid of that in the first place.

It's just reversed racism. People obviously have been doing it wrong.

I don't personally mind though.

There are under privilege white people who can get these things you know... Generally scholarships that are for poor people are for POOR PEOPLE, it's not exclusive by race, yes there are race based scholarships but the ones based on monetary standings aren't generally limited to race.

Even if you were right about them becoming what you consider to be minorities you're argument still fails because it's not a matter of population density it's a matter of history. Up to like the 1950's there was little to no opportunities for anyone other then a white man to gain any "real" success, so in all honesty these scholarships are trying to let other races catch up to the overwhelming "head start" that white people have had in America. Now before you say it, yes, not EVERY white person has this "head start" which is why in my original post I said these things should be based on economic standings only because most children can't be held for the finical stability of their parents and older ancestors.

Scholarships for the poor are for the poor, but race does have a factor of who's first in line for them or not. I don't know where you're going with this but to outright deny that being hispanic/african american doesn't yield any form of pity card is just outright lying.

A scholarship should be focused on either hard income families or people who work for them. I don't find it right that my friend who is a women and also Hispanic pays 1/3 less than I do because she has people sponsor her for those irrelevant details. pineapple, it aggravates me more that people who can actually afford college actually apply for scholarships, save it for the people who do in fact need them. When some spoiled brat whos father is a 1 star general can get 25,000 towards college, throwing out kids who are in fact poverty level, just because they had the money to push that tutor, it's wrong.

In fact in the next 25 years I can guarantee a civil war, and it's gonna be the "have's" vs the "haves not", and I have a feeling the east is going to lose this time, based on the fact that the minorities fill a bigger piece of the pie chart then whites. It's that simply I don't know whats so hard to get.