Supreme Court accepted Affirmative Action cases

[politicallefty]

It's interesting that everyone (both pro-AA and anti-AA) immediately jumps to justifying/criticizing AA on the basis of the concept that AA can rectify socioeconomics inequities that exist between races, because SCOTUS has explicitly said that this is not a constitutional justification. Its constitutional justification has always been that diversity is a compelling interest at educational institutions.

That isn't to say that the latter is an objectively more convincing justification, but it's noteworthy that no one seems to be talking about the aspect of AA that has actually allowed it to withstand constitutional challenges in the past.

Not me. I've long believed that affirmative action is both bad policy and unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment. I think Sotomayor and Ginsburg were totally wrong in their dissent in Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action. Their dissent believed that affirmative action was actually required by the Constitution. I could not disagree more.

I don't disagree that there isn't systemic racism in our society and educational system. That includes massively underfunding schools with strong minority enrollment. It is up to the political branches to determine a better way that satisfies the Constitution.

I mean I'm not sure it affects white people much. See Thomas Jefferson placing holistic reviews and increasing white students .

Unfortunately, you're right. Holistic reviews (which mostly includes extracurriculars, sports, community volunteering, charity work, etc) tend to lean heavily towards the affluent, particularly affluent whites.

[politicallefty]

To be fair, Sotomayor did not say AA is required by constitution, which is clearly ridiculous. Her point was that MI should change their AA policy in other methods. They should not change it by ballot measure to pass an amendment, because it would be very hard for racial minorities to pass pass an amendment to support AA. This is probably equally or even more ridiculous. I respect Ginsburg as a jurist, and was disappointed the signed on such a ridiculous opinion.

I admit that was an oversimplification, but I read the text of Michigan Proposal 2. I don't see anything offensive in that amendment that violates the United State Constitution. To strike it down would be to say that the text somehow violates some right of affirmative action. I don't see how you can see otherwise. This isn't singling out a specific class from protections or discrimination as Romer v. Evans ruled against.

[politicallefty]

To be fair, Sotomayor did not say AA is required by constitution, which is clearly ridiculous. Her point was that MI should change their AA policy in other methods. They should not change it by ballot measure to pass an amendment, because it would be very hard for racial minorities to pass pass an amendment to support AA. This is probably equally or even more ridiculous. I respect Ginsburg as a jurist, and was disappointed the signed on such a ridiculous opinion.

I admit that was an oversimplification, but I read the text of Michigan Proposal 2. I don't see anything offensive in that amendment that violates the United State Constitution. To strike it down would be to say that the text somehow violates some right of affirmative action. I don't see how you can see otherwise. This isn't singling out a specific class from protections or discrimination as Romer v. Evans ruled against.

Her argument was that affirmative action is a policy to reduce racial discrimination and must therefore be treated as a special thing. So by putting a ban on affirmative action in the constitution rather than merely statute you were making it harder to obtain the special thing. And the government is only supposed to make it easier to obtain special things, not harder. By her argument you could substitute affirmative action with literally any policy claimed to be about racial discrimination and she'd reach the same conclusion.

I'm not making that argument. I explicitly said I disagreed with it. This is a major issue where I tend to depart with my liberal friends. I cannot justify affirmative action under the Constitution.

I wanted to separate the issue in Romer v. Evans whereby the state constitution specifically precluding non-discrimination for a particular class. While the Michigan proposal did not mention sexual orientation or gender identity, it did not preclude them from protections. The areas of non-preferential treatment under the Michigan Constitution are also those that are barred from discrimination.