Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for a three-member plurality, sided with the voters, who he said had undertaken “a basic exercise of their democratic power” in approving the amendment. He cautioned that the ruling took no position on the constitutionality of race-conscious admissions policies themselves. “This case is not about how the debate about racial preferences should be resolved. It is about who may resolve it.”
Interesting given how the Prop 8 appeal went (I understand the court dismissed the appeal on a procedural grounds).
Not so, Justice Sonia Sotomayor responded, in a stinging 58-page dissent. “Our Constitution places limits on what a majority of the people may do,” she wrote, such as when they pass laws that oppress minorities.That’s what the affirmative action ban does, by altering the political process to single out race and sex as the only factors that may not be considered in university admissions.While the Constitution “does not guarantee minority groups victory in the political process,” Justice Sotomayor wrote, “it does guarantee them meaningful and equal access to that process. It guarantees that the majority may not win by stacking the political process against minority groups permanently.” The Michigan amendment has already resulted in a 25 percent drop in minority representation in Michigan’s public universities and colleges, even as the proportion of college-age African-Americans in the state has gone up
In the most eloquent part of her dissent, Justice Sotomayor rightly took aim at the conservative members of the court, who speak high-mindedly of racial equality even as they write off decades-old precedent meant to address the lingering effects of “centuries of racial discrimination” — a view that is “out of touch with reality.” The reality, she wrote, is that “race matters.”
In response to her pointed rebuke, Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. wrote a terse concurrence chiding Justice Sotomayor for questioning her colleagues’ “openness and candor.”
New York Times editorial (http://www.nytimes.com/)
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2014-04-23 04:42 pm (UTC)Interesting given how the Prop 8 appeal went (I understand the court dismissed the appeal on a procedural grounds).
New York Times editorial (http://www.nytimes.com/)