The Supreme Court kicks away the ladder

[Celerity]

The US Supreme Court’s decision to ban affirmative action in university admissions has struck at the heart of the ‘American dream’.

https://www.socialeurope.eu/the-supreme-court-kicks-away-the-ladder



BY ANTARA HALDAR 12th July 2023

Fifteen years ago, I watched in rapt attention as a resplendent, yet surreal, scene unfolded—the election of the first-ever African-American United States president, Barack Obama. Late last month, the Supreme Court, in a landmark 6-3 ruling, struck down what may have been one of the key factors in making that story possible—affirmative action in higher education.

In an opinion drafted by the chief justice, John Roberts, the court rejected race-conscious admissions policies at Harvard (Obama’s law-school alma mater) and the University of North Carolina on the grounds that they ‘cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause’ of the 14th amendment to the constitution. The dissenting opinion was, fittingly, delivered by Sonia Sotomayor, an Obama appointee and the first Supreme Court justice of Latin American origin. Sotomayor lamented that the decision ‘rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress’.

Sharp drop

Judging by the experience of even liberal states such as Michigan and California (two of nine to have already rejected affirmative action), the court’s decision is likely to lead to a sharp drop in the number of black and latino/a students at undergraduate level, as well as at professional schools. It also opens policies such as corporate diversity programmes, which ramped up after the murder of George Floyd in 2020, to judicial scrutiny. After the Dobbs ruling last year eliminated the constitutional right to abortion, this is the second time the court has upended years of jurisprudence on a highly charged issue (it has also, recently, upheld the right to discriminate against the LGBT+ community).

Notably, in all these cases, nothing material has changed—save for the composition of the court. Conservatives’ reaction to the affirmative-action ruling has been rousing, with endorsements pouring in from Mike Pence, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, and with much of the credit going to Donald Trump (who as president appointed three of the six conservative justices). Conservatives have played the long game, especially on court appointments, and now they are reaping the rewards of their finely-tuned ideological machine. The current president, Joe Biden, described it as ‘not a normal court’.

‘Matrix of mobility’....................

snip

[Hermit-The-Prog]

1. The Dobbs decision cannot be reconciled with the 14th Amendment.

The Subversive 6 don't care about logic, law, precedent, consequences, or the U.S. Constitution; the only things that matter to them are their power and ideology.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

2. For this thread

Link to tweet

/photo/1

[Celerity]

3. +100

[uponit7771]

4. Redlining affects schooling in America to this day, I'm shocked this wasn't argued as a reason to ..

... keep AA in education.

[BeckyDem]

5. Disastrous.

K&R

[Showbizkid]

6. 4 paragraphs and the word "Asian" does not appear

Weird.