While everyone was going up about the Supreme Court’s block on President Joe Biden’s student loan debt relief plan, the court passed another decision right under our noses. According to NBC News, the court refused to hear the appeal of a Black death row inmate who alleged his jury was picked based on race.
Tony Clark was convicted on murder charges and sentenced to death in the killing of a 13-year-old boy during the robbery of a convenience store back in 2014. His appeal claimed that during the jury selection for his trial, prosecutors unlawfully sought to strike Black jurors based solely on race. That would be in direct violation of the Court’s 1986 ruling that potential jurors can’t be excluded based on race. But alas, Clark’s trial was composed of 11 white people and one Black person.
Ultimately I agree with the Affirmative Action ruling. The Equal Protections clause doesn’t say, “All racism is bad except some racism for the right reasons, that’s okay.” it just says there is to be no discrimination based on race.
Affirmative Action was racism with good intentions.
I don’t think you understand what racism means. AA was there to help even the playing field.
It should be based on economic status. That would accomplish the same boost to struggling people without requiring the distinction to be about race.
But that’s using rose colored glasses. In the past if you said only look at people’s economic status guess what would have happened, there would be a few more poor whites going to college but still no minorities.
Institutional racism runs deep, it doesn’t go away because someone says to stop being racist, you have to physically take the wheel and correct the ship. Was it perfect? No. But is there a concerted effort by multiple bad actors including sitting Supreme Court justices to gut long standing protections that have shown that they work? Without any doubt. The most recent Supreme Court cases that have had the most devastating impact were knowingly fraudulent but allowed to advance anyways. That stinks like major shit to me.
You can debate the merits of affirmative action all day, in the end there are extremists gaming the system to overrule the will of the people to benefit a select few. That’s dogshit and unamerican, full stop.
Oh no doubt. Affirmative Action is the easiest (and therefore only viable) way to fix that problem, even if the “correct” way is to base it on economics. Society is complex and we need suboptimal solutions in order to even function correctly.
I agree if the hypothetical class-based AA law is being abused and allowing poor white kids going to college and no more minorites, that would be a huge step backwards, but I really doubt that would be the case unless the law was ridiculously vague.
If a class-based AA law was passed that was completely indiscrimate towards race, I think that would be much fairer.
Well at the end of the day it’s clear that all of these things need to stop being propped up by vague court decisions and should instead be passed as an act of congress. That requires a concentrated long term effort to vote out anyone standing in the way of progress to obtain the necessary majorities to enshrine these things into law. I think if there’s ever been a time where there needs to be a democratic supermajority it’s now. As long as we continue to keep operating in these thin margins individual extremists can hijack the collective.
Perhaps one day we can get there and pass laws that can’t be overruled by a corrupt court.
I believe judicial review could work if the entire point of being a justice was to interpret absolutely every word of the constitution literally. If that was the case, we would actually have a solid foundation to the law of the land. Instead, justices have time and time again made decisions off of words they think are implied even if not stated at all in the constitution.
I don’t think the Constitution’s literal interpretation is perfect, but the entire point is to amend the document as needed.
I do not think that means what you think it means. Currently there are admissions based on economic status, they’re called Legacy admissions.
theres a way to sidestep this entire issue, make college free.
Clearly I meant the opposite. Legacy admissions obviously cater to the wealthy, not the disadvantaged.
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Not sure how trying to balance the scales against previously restricted populations is racist.
previously*, in terms of going to school and getting into college, minorities are at no disadvantage that isn’t a result of economic standing. Yes, economic standing that has been decreased by being previously restricted. I think race-based AA is targetting a trait that isnt even a direct factor in getting into college.
It’s funny you think you can separate race and economics in this country given decades of anti-black exclusion. It’s like you’re viewing it all in a vacuum to support your thesis, wish is wrong at its core.
You can separate race in the context of college admissions from economics, yes. That isn’t living in a vacuum or unrealistic.
So in your opinion minoritie are less capable of getting into college. Besides economic reasons, (class-based affirmative action actually makes sense) what disadvantage is placed on someone because of their race?
It’s racism. Racism is the thing that you’re looking for. Are you saying there’s no racism? Anywhere? You’re not arguing in good faith at all. This whole economic aspect is just a straw man distraction.
Obviously I dont think theres no racism, racism runs deep in many aspects of the USA.
However, there is no racism in the college admissions system, and if there is, anonymize race during admission.
If anything race as an AA factor is a straw man distraction, as there is actually a correlation between your economic state and what colleges you can attend, while your race has no effect on this.
You’re making a whole lotta statements that are pure conjecture and talking points. “Racism doesn’t exist….but I mean if it does just do this one thing and it’s gone!”
I don’t see how anonymizing race on college admissions is pure conjecture and a talking point. I agree with the quote you say as if it proves me wrong; if the people doing the admissions do not know the students applying, there can be no racial bias in their selection of students. If that’s conjecture, do you have a reason that would not be the case?
The conjecture is saying there’s no racism. Those are the literal words you used. Then you went on to add in a what if scenario with a very over simplified and rose colored glasses solution. And if you remove race from an application there are still so many ways for people to infer. Your name, city of birth, schools, hobbies, etc. Yes anonymizing applications could work but it’s not as simple as removing the race field. I know this very well as someone who’s been hiring people for 15+ years. The amount of unconscious bias we all have is pretty surprising when you see it demonstrated for yourself.
Then there’s also the problem of once folks get on how are you sure they’re being treated equally. You’re trying to make this a simple problem and it’s much more complex than you can imagine.
Remove the name from the application information too then. I disagree that your city of birth, school, or hobby could give someone enough information to reasonably infer your race.
I don’t think the solution to racism in college admissions is to assume the people selecting will be biased and discriminate the other way around. The solution is to make a procedure where there is no room for anything other than absolutely stupid outliers. Maybe one in a thousand college admissions counselor would try to infer a students race, but that counselor is just terrible at their job in that case (in a world where the pertinent details have been anonymized).
If anything, I think its conjecture to assume there will be an implicit bias even if pertinent information to race is removed from applications.
That’s your opinion of AA, and a reductive take, not mine. This country has never been race blind and to assume otherwise is incredibly ignorant and naive.
Yes, this country has never once in its history been “race blind”, and minorities have historically (and in many ways still are) at a disadvantage. Getting into college is not something minorities struggle with because of their race, if one race struggles disproporionately to another, that is almost certainly due to that races average economic condition, not a direct result of race.
So why should we discriminate against people based off of race, at best enforcing stereotypes, and at worst being completely unconstitional. AA would be much more fair and effective if applied to low income individuals and communities, as your income actually has an effect on your ability to go to college.
Lol you must have failed history. It’s cute you think you can separate economics from race.
You can separate economics from race in the context of college admissions, that is not unrealistic.
I’m white, and I went to a HBCU on a minority scholarship. AA works both ways but you’re not ready to consider this.
It’s still wrong. I’m perfectly happy to consider all aspects of AA, but so long as any part of it stands on determining someone’s admission based on race it will always be racism and I’m not in favor of racism for any reason.
I also agree with the ruling. Aid need to be based on economic standing without regard for skin color.
The decision wasn’t even specifically anti-AA, it was specifically anti-racism.
The decision that came from the same court that wasn’t concerned at all about a death row inmate’s claims of racism in this case was motivated by anti-racism?
I have no idea what motivated any of the court’s decisions; all I’m talking about is what the decision stated.
Yes, or at the very least striking down an unconstitional system: “nor shall any State deprive… …nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”.
One decision can be bad and another can be good! (Throughout all of our history the SC has made looney decisions [hell, every federal law prohibiting drug use is unconstitutional], and Im not trying to pretend justices are impartial, I just agree with their decision / interpretation.)