WASHINGTON – The US Supreme Court on Tuesday dealt a stinging blow to the prospects of affirmative action and its constitutionality.
In the state of Michigan, voters in 2006 approved a constitutional amendment by a margin of 58 percent to 42 percent that said no college or university in that state shall discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.
That amendment had been challenged in court and dismissed by a judge.
However, on Tuesday, the Supreme Court voted 6-2 to uphold the amendment as passed by Michigan voters.
Writing for the majority in the decision, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote “This case is not about how the debate about racial preferences should be resolved. It is about who may resolve it. There is no authority in the Constitution of the United States or in this Court’s precedents for the Judiciary to set aside Michigan laws that commit this policy determination to the voters.
“Michigan voters used the initiative system to bypass public officials who were deemed not responsive to the concerns of a majority of the voters with respect to a policy of granting race-based preferences that raises difficult and delicate issues,” he went on to say.
In dissenting, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that “we are fortunate to live in a democratic society. But without checks, democratically approved legislation can oppress minority groups. For that reason, our Constitution places limits on what a majority of the people may do. Yet to know the history of our Nation is to understand its long and lamentable record of stymieing the right of racial minorities to participate in the political process.”
Sotomayor also said that she doesn’t like the term “affirmative action”.
“I instead use the term “race-sensitive admissions policies.”
Those policies are now unconstitutional.
