Divided Court Tackles College Affirmative Action
A lot of questions asked about how preferences actually work in practice
During oral arguments yesterday, the Supreme Court revisited an issue that has divided the judicial body for decades – affirmative action.
"I want to know," Justice Stephen G. Breyer asked Bert W. Rein early in the session, "whether you want us to… overrule Grutter."
He was referring to Grutter v. Bollinger, the 2003 ruling in which the Court allowed universities to institute affirmative action as long as they assiduously followed the Court's narrowly tailored guidelines. Namely, the decision outlawed quotas and prevented a university from categorizing applicants in separate pools based on race or ethnicity. Instead, a university had to adopt a holistic, individualized approach where an applicant's race or ethnicity would be one of many factors taken into consideration.
Hide Comments (0)
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post commentsMute this user?
Ban this user?
Un-ban this user?
Nuke this user?
Un-nuke this user?
Flag this comment?
Un-flag this comment?