George Leef has been writing about affirmative action in higher education for nearly a decade. In his latest article on the subject, “Higher Education’s Legal Battlefield,” Leef describes the current judicial landscape (comparing it to Gettysburg, by the way).
First, the Texas Fifth Circuit Court will soon respond to the Supreme Court’s remand of the Fisher vs. Texas case. The court will have to decide whether the University of Texas has met the Supreme Court’s “strict scrutiny” standard for using racial preferences in its admission process.
Second, there is the Schuette v. By Any Means Necessary, a case on which the Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments. That was an appeal by the Michigan attorney general (Schuette) of a state court’s decision on Michigan’s 2006 proposition banning racial preferences in state decisions. That passed with a 58 percent majority. But a coalition (By Any Means Necessary) then argued that such a ban on racial preferences violates the equal protection of the laws promised by the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Confused? George sorts it out.