The Supreme Court today sent an affirmative action case concerning college admissions to the lower court to have them use the proper legal standards, so there’s no real decision — but when I discuss these kinds of cases with people, I am often surprised at how misunderstood affirmative action is.
Affirmative action began as a way to fix discrimination where it needed to be fixed. Imagine a factory in an area that is 50% minority. If the jobs in the factory required no experience, you’d expect 50% of the employees to be minorities, wouldn’t you? Just based on statistics. Well, of course that wasn’t always the case, especially in the 60s and 70s when affirmative action began. You’d have these places with 10% minority workers.
So what would happen is that the factory would have to explain themselves. If, for instance, they could show that of the job applications they received, only 10% were from minorities then perhaps that could explain it. But that usually didn’t happen. And so the factory was made to have a policy of accepting minorities to get to where they should have been had there been no discrimination.
Note: this never required you to hire someone who was not qualified. Never. Yet people who scream about “reverse discrimination” always try to give anecdotal examples of where that happened.
Most of the recent cases involve colleges, where there is a different objective. Colleges want to have a diverse student body. They like to get students from all over the country and all over the world, with different religions and beliefs and backgrounds and races. They also look to get people with different experiences and people who were leaders in their community.
It’s how you get a real education. Real education comes from getting lots of different viewpoints and not being in a room where everyone thinks exactly the same. (As an aside, I taught a Constitutional Law class for a semester at Curry College in Massachusetts back in the ’90s — the entire class was full of rich, spoiled white kids and I couldn’t get a good debate going no matter what the issue. It was terrible.)
Lawsuits such as the one the Supreme Court had today come from white kids who got better SAT scores but yet didn’t get in while a minority student whose scores weren’t so good did.
Are SAT scores everything? Do they predict future success? No, and all educators know that. They are an indication, but that’s just one of many factors to consider when accepting students. (Some schools now don’t even consider SATs when accepting students.)
Yet people scream “reverse discrimination” and only look at race when a minority person gets in over a white person. (For all you know, the minority applicant was an Eagle Scout who was High School President, plays a musical instrument, knows three languages, but tests poorly.)
And now we get back to the main point again — qualifications. Even if the minority student is not as qualified as the white student, he or she is still qualified. They’ve met the minimum requirement to get in, and once in, they will have to take the same tests and do as well as every other student or they will fail.
Family one: “Help! Terrorists might harm me and my family, destroying our home and ruining our lives!”
Republican politician: “Don’t worry, the government is here to help you, by checking phone messages and emails for suspicious types and stopping them before they can act! We’ll make sure nothing bad happens to you and your family!”
…
Family two: “Help! Cancer is destroying me and my family, and the costs have made us lose our home and is ruining our lives!”
Republican politician: “Oh, well, tough luck. Sorry, it’s not the Government’s job to help you.”
(curtain call)
I have always given this advice to all my clients (and anyone willing to listen): If there is any chance you might be a suspect, even if it’s not true, do not talk to the police. There is nothing you can say that will make things better. Their job is to get you to confess or at least say things that can be used against you. That makes their job so much easier later. The only exception is if you have an air-tight alibi (“I was in Europe the last three months and here’s my passport to prove it.”)
Well, I’m not sure what to advise them now. The Supreme Court yesterday ruled that silence can be used against you, too.
According to this decision, the District Attorney is allowed to argue to the jury that your silence can be interpreted as a sign of guilt.
Conservatives everywhere are thrilled with this new interpretation of the 5th Amendment — an interpretation which wholly new and not supported by any documentation from the Founding Fathers whose “intent” they always say should follow. Apparently, every Amendment has exceptions (except, of course, for the 2nd.)
This, by the way, is a great example of “judicial activism” wherein the judges write laws and change the meanings of long-established precedent. You know how much conservatives hate judicial activism. Well, unless they agree with the result.
My only hope is that some states (such as Pennsylvania, where I practice) will negate the decision. After all, a state can always give more rights than the bare minimum required by the Constitution.
Although, this type of cartoon could have been run during any administration.
ventrellaquest.com 