Litnet

Hello Comester,  

Gelys hier onder gedeeltes uit die artikels gepubliseer Maandag 24 Junie 2013. (Gedeeltes aangesien daar gepoog word om in die perke van 'fair use' te wees en dui nie daarop dat daar gepoog word om dit te filter nie en so 'n wanvoorstelling kan veroorsaak): 

June 24, 2013
Supreme Court Orders Lower Court to Reconsider Affirmative Action Case
By THE NEW YORK TIMES 

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Monday that lower courts did not apply a sufficiently tough level of scrutiny to the University of Texas’ use of race in admissions decisions, sending the case back to one of those lower courts to be reconsidered.

The decision will most likely have few immediate implications for affirmative action programs around the country, including in Texas. But it may represent the start of a new wave of challenges to the use of race in admissions decisions.

In a 7-to-1 decision, with Justice Anthony M. Kennedy writing the majority opinion, the court ruled that the lower court did not use a legal standard known as strict scrutiny to assess the university’s program.

“Strict scrutiny,” the opinion read, “does not permit a court to accept a school’s assertion that its admissions process uses race in a permissible way without closely examining how the process works in practice.”

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the lone dissenter in the case, Fisher v. the University of Texas.

Supreme Court sends back University of Texas race admissions plan to lower court
By Associated Press, Updated: Monday, June 24, 4:39 PM 

Soos gepubliseer in die Washington Post:  

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has sent a Texas case on race-based college admissions back to a lower court for another look.

The court’s 7-1 decision Monday leaves unsettled many of the basic questions about the continued use of race as a factor in college admissions.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, said a federal appeals court needs to subject the University of Texas admission plan to the highest level of judicial scrutiny.

Kennedy said the appeals court did not test the Texas plan under the most exacting level of judicial review.

He said such a test is required by the court’s 2003 decision upholding affirmative action in higher education.

Justice Clarence Thomas, alone on the court, said he would have overturned the high court’s 2003 ruling.

Another factor fueling Fisher’s lawsuit was that the university has produced significant diversity by automatically offering about three-quarters of its spots to graduates in the top 10 percent of their Texas high schools, under a 1990s state law signed by then-Gov. George W. Bush. The admissions program has been changed so that now only the top 8 percent gain automatic admission.

More than 8 in 10 African-American and Latino students who enrolled at the flagship campus in Austin in 2011 were automatically admitted, according to university statistics. Even among the rest, both sides acknowledge that the use of race is modest.

In all, black and Hispanic students made up more than a quarter of the incoming freshmen class. White students constituted less than half the entering class when students with Asian backgrounds and other minorities were added in.

The university said the extra measure of diversity it gets from the slots outside automatic admission is crucial because too many of its classrooms have only token minority representation, at best. At the same time, Texas argued that race is one of many factors considered and that whether race played the key role in any applicant’s case was impossible to tell.

The Obama administration, 57 of the Fortune 100 companies and large numbers of public and private colleges that feared a broad ruling against affirmative action backed the Texas program. Among the benefits of affirmative action, the administration said, is that it creates a pipeline for a diverse officer corps that it called “essential to the military’s operational readiness.” In 2003, the court cited the importance of a similar message from military leaders.

Updated June 24, 2013, 10:42 a.m. ET
Supreme Court Returns Affirmative-Action Case to Lower Court
By JESS BRAVIN And BRENT KENDALL - Wall Street Journal 

The Supreme Court avoided a sweeping ruling on affirmative action in a closely watched case involving the University of Texas, sending the case back to a lower court for a new review.

While the top-10% plan vastly expanded the number of Texas high schools sending graduates to the state's flagship campus, UT administrators frowned at having to accept applicants from less competitive high schools, whose top students often had lower test scores and poorer academic preparation than middle-tier students from leading suburban high schools that traditionally served as the university's principal feeders.

The university said the presence of better-off minority students could help dispel stereotypes that could be perpetuated by the presence of those admitted through the top-10% program.

That stance drew harsh questioning from the Supreme Court's conservative wing at arguments last October.

"I thought that the whole purpose of affirmative action was to help students who come from underprivileged backgrounds, but you make a very different argument that I don't think I've ever seen before," said Justice Samuel Alito.

When UT's lawyer, Gregory Garre, attempted to explain the admissions formula as a "holistic" review of individual attributes, Justice Kennedy heard something else.

"So what you're saying is that what counts is race above all," said Justice Kennedy, considered a swing vote on affirmative action. "You want underprivileged of a certain race and privileged of a certain race. So that's race."

Other state universities, such as the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said that using a race-blind top-10% plan could actually increase racial diversity on campus, but at the unacceptable price of admitting less-qualified applicants who would lower the institution's national ranking.

Since 2003, the Supreme Court's composition shifted to the right on matters of race, when Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, author of the Grutter decision, retired and was succeeded by Justice Alito, who has shown far greater skepticism toward race-conscious polices.

The Obama administration backed UT, arguing that affirmative action was important for several official objectives, particularly in the military. The Pentagon said ethnic and racial diversity of the enlisted force was necessary to foster morale and retain discipline in the ranks.

For most of its history, the University of Texas, like Texas itself, was segregated by law. A 1950 Supreme Court ruling forced UT to admit an African-American to its law school, paving the way for the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision holding segregated schools unconstitutional. Even so, UT didn't agree to accept black undergraduates until 1956, and it continued to operate whites-only dormitories into the 1960s.

Baie dankie

Wouter