Many observers are waiting for the United States Supreme Court to decide whether to delve again into college admissions with a pending case out of Harvard University in which Asian and white students claim discrimination. We have been following that case for a couple years. However, there is a new ruling out of North Carolina that could present another opportunity for the Court to revisit the issue. Judge Loretta C. Biggs of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina just ruled that UNC can use race criteria to guarantee a “critical mass” of minority students in its classes. Both cases could offer the Court an opportunity to clarify its conflicted affirmative action rulings on college admissions.
In her decision, Judge Biggs rejected the claim of Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) that UNC engaged in unconstitutional discrimination under its 2005 diversity plan for “critical masses of underrepresented populations.” Biggs said that it was not necessary for UNC to define the term critical mass beyond the desire for the educational benefits of a diverse student body. It was not a quota for how many students of particular races should be admitted and “race is not a defining feature.”
Judge Biggs further found that UNC “has engaged in ongoing, serious, good faith considerations of workable race neutral alternatives in an effort to find options to its race conscious process in admissions.”
The case will now go to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
The case is Students for Fair Admission v. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, No. 14-954 (M.D.N.C.).
Here is the opinion: SFFA v. UNC
“THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE WITHOUT DIFFERENTIATION”
Differentiation between people and/or differentiation between persons is patently unconstitutional.
_____________________________________________________________________________
The manifest tenor of the Constitution is that there shall be no differentiation between the people and no differentiation between persons.
“Congress shall make no law respecting…the right of the people…” to assemble, matriculate or secure employment.
“Congress shall make no law respecting…the right of [a person]…” to assemble, matriculate or secure employment.
The Constitution does not differentiate between people or persons.
Congress shall make no law that differentiates between people or persons.
Affirmative action is differentiation between people and persons.
Public universities shall make no admission that differentiates between people or persons.
Applicants to academic institutions must be qualified academically.
Private universities enjoy the right to private property which includes the right to choose admittees.
Public universities must strictly adhere to the Constitution which does not provide for differentiation between people or persons.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
1st Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
_______________________________________________
“[Private property is] that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual.”
– James Madison
_____________
“…courts…must…declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void.”
“…men…do…what their powers do not authorize, [and] what they forbid.”
“[A] limited Constitution … can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing … To deny this would be to affirm … that men acting by virtue of powers may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.”
– Alexander Hamilton
Discrimination to end discrimination.
Well Judge BIggs, you really are the Queen of Hearts: To all you unfortunate non-favored: “It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”
Speaking of exercised racism…
“THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE WITHOUT DIFFERENTIATION”
Differentiation between people and/or differentiation between persons is patently unconstitutional.
_____________________________________________________________________________
The manifest tenor of the Constitution is that there shall be no differentiation between the people and no differentiation between persons.
“Congress shall make no law respecting…the right of the people…” to assemble, matriculate or secure employment.
“Congress shall make no law respecting…the right of [a person]…” to assemble, matriculate or secure employment.
The Constitution does not differentiate between people or persons.
Congress shall make no law that differentiates between people or persons.
Affirmative action is differentiation between people and persons.
Public universities shall make no admission that differentiates between people or persons.
Applicants to academic institutions must be qualified academically.
Private universities enjoy the right to private property which includes the right to choose admittees.
Public universities must strictly adhere to the Constitution which does not provide for differentiation between people or persons.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
1st Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
_______________________________________________
“[Private property is] that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual.”
– James Madison
_____________
“…courts…must…declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void.”
“…men…do…what their powers do not authorize, [and] what they forbid.”
“[A] limited Constitution … can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing … To deny this would be to affirm … that men acting by virtue of powers may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.”
– Alexander Hamilton
“race is not a defining feature.”
Right. It’s just a really wicked coincidence,
I think the Irish got discriminated against in America. The movies Blazing Saddles shows it. The mayor of a western town was letting black American migrants into his town when they pledged to help fight off an American Indian tribe. “But NOT the Irish!”
When Democrat policies lead to failures in education, they respond not by improving education, but by abolishing the tests, like the SAT, and by lowering the bar to admission.
CA suspended its CAASPP state testing, for 2020 and 2021. I believe this was because they did not want to gather any data that would indicate how poorly they were doing distance learning. This data would have been used to put further pressure on schools to reopen for in person learning.
When your method isn’t working, just prevent it from being measured.
Karen S, you will notice that the left will water down admissions to Med School, physical needs of fire dept personal, law school, Harvard and other top notch schools, exam schools etc etc, but they will not water down what it takes to make it to the NBA. Why not allow Jewish kids that can’t jump into elite college basketball programs? Why not do away with the combines at NFL camps so that slow Irish kids can get into the league? I guess sports is more important than med school, or pilot training or being able to heft 150 person out of a burning building.
Why should race be an entitlement to anything? Skin color is a superficial characteristic passed on from ancestors, like epicanthic folds or sleek black hair.
Only a meritocracy is fair, with everyone held to the same standard.
The goal should be to improve the elementary through high school education of everyone. Is a poor white kid whose mother is too addled on meth less deserving of extra tutoring help than a poor black kid? How about we identify who needs more help in school, such as tutoring or a safe place to study? Some kids don’t get any help on homework at home. Some kids come from families who don’t value education. By providing them tutoring, helping them study for tests, or giving them a place to do homework, you’re giving all kids a boost. Skin color has nothing to do with value or being deserving. Every kid deserves their best chance.
When kids have a better high school education, then they’re better prepared for college or trade school or work.
Simply lowering the bar does minorities a disservice, and is frankly racist, as it implies that minorities cannot compete on a level playing field. It also diminishes their accomplishments, that they achieved on their own merit, because people will assume that the bar was lowered for them.
In my degree, most of the students were Asian. This wasn’t unfair; it’s because Asian culture places great value upon education, especially a degree in the sciences. I cannot imagine resenting an Asian fellow student for a place that she worked darn hard to achieve.
Exactly right, Karen S.
Why would it be okay for UNC rto use race-based admissions, while at the same time it is not okay for public schools in Topeka, Kansas to use race-based admissions?
Because Judge Biggs said so….contrary to law and commonsense. She is an activist judge legislating from the Bench.
Affirmative discrimination compensates for, and profits from, every child left behind policy in several Democrat districts where diversity (e.g. the racist designation “people of color”), inequity, and exclusion is established dogma. Some, Select [Black] Lives Matter
Has it got to the point where a judge’s race determines her ruling? Because there is no other rational or legal explanation for this biased ruling. This will further erode any faith in the “justice” system.
Well Giocon, didn’t Justice Sotomeyer say she would rule as a woman with a Latina background? Imagine is Barret said such a thing.
The left hammered Trump for insinuating that a judge might rule as one with a Latin background. However, the left thinks that it is OK for the Supreme Court, which deals with what is or isn’t Constitutional, to have justices that rule with their Latina history rather than the history of the United States.
The left is made up of hypocrites and self-serving ignorant people.
Sotomayor might be a good judge at a local level, but her attitude is antithetical to one who is on the Supreme Court.
good faith considerations of workable race neutral alternatives in an effort to find options to its race conscious process in admissions.”
This is a judge, not some wild eyed leftist that believes “ends justifies the means”
Biggs said that it was not necessary for UNC to define the term critical mass
How convenient for the good Judge. Not having to define terms means the judge is untethered from facts, and is allowed to dwell in the arena of feels.
The college and judge are supposed to be my intellectual betters, yet they just devolve into meaningless talking points
What would happen if they found that the critical mass was zero? Then what?
Some background to the illustrious Judge Biggs.
Voter ID is popular with the people of North Carolina.
Getting a State issued ID card is free at the State Drivers License Offices.
Alternative Government issued ID’s are acceptable as well.
The claim that the North Carolina Voter ID Law is racially motivated and designed to dis-enfranchise Blacks is pure hogwash.
In order to get a Library Card one must have a Drivers License or some other acceptable ID card….and that rule is not seen as being racially motivated by the Democrats…..only if it involves voting does it upset the Democrats…..now why would that be one asks!
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/federal-judge-block-latest-north-carolina-voter-id-mandate-n1107896
Here is the latest scheme by the Democrats in North Carolina….they want to remove two Republican Supreme Court Justices from the Voter ID Case that is pending before the Court.
That would leave five Justices to hear the case…..how do you reckon that would turn out?
https://www.carolinajournal.com/opinion-article/one-state-supreme-court-case-could-destroy-the-court-for-years-to-come/
I don’t know why this quote didn’t post.
“When people get used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems like discrimination.” Thomas Sowell
S Meyer, Thomas Sowell should be compulsory reading for anyone involved in public policy. The idea that it is a compelling state interest to obtain “critical mass” of any disadvantaged group to obtain diversity and thereby promote educational benefits is bizarre. So far as I know, it has never been shown that racial/ethnic diversity per se improves education or that a “critical mass” is necessary for this. The continuing use of race/ethnicity as a sorting mechanism is not only divisive but counterproductive. It makes it easier for any member of a preferred group to get by without developing the habits, skills and capabilities that are necessary for anyone to stand on his own two feet. More generally, it leads to a weakening of the effectiveness of all our institutions, as those less qualified are able to get positions they would otherwise not have, with adverse consequences for the quality of what those institutions do. The US ceased to be a racist society decades ago, and it is time to have confidence that requiring colorblind qualifications-based selection will, over time, promote the interests of both disadvantaged groups and society as a whole. If the Supreme Court had some courage, it would take a case like this and adopt Clarence Thomas’s views and put an end to race-based selection, in education and other areas as well.
Well said.
Daniel, I entirely agree. The left cannot debate Sowell because he has the information they are lacking and don’t want to see. He has proven his case over and over.
When the left knows they cannot debate because their talking points are wrong, they demean and then ignore those people. They have been successful because a lot of Stupid people’s responses to what Sowell say are insults. They never deal with the facts. However, Sowell has taken the left’s rhetoric and proved a lot of it wrong with numbers and facts. The left ignores it.
I read most of what he has written. Some forget that he is also an expert on culture writing three books on the subject.
ATS thinks he is smart because he can find missing commas. He should start looking for Sowell’s writing a brighten up.
The slaves said they wanted “Free-Dom.”
What they really wanted was “Free-Stuff.”
…by the truckload.
The Israelite slaves were out of Egypt before the ink was dry on their release papers.
Can you say white, phantom-guilt-ridden, milquetoast liberals?
The slaves were illegal aliens to be deported under contemporary immigration law requiring citizens to be “…free white person(s)….”
They love affirmative action laws; they hate the Naturalization law of 1802.
America is a society of laws; some laws inhabitants like, some laws inhabitants don’t like.
Dennis Bedard said what I was thinking and put it better than I can. I would add that critical mass is just as bad as a specific quota. It is either nonsense or it means that outcomes should be close to the percent of the population of each group. It is a fudging euphemism for quota. Recall that there has been three basic reasons given over the years for unequal outcomes, genetic differences which is not popular today, deliberate discrimination by the majority which was certainly true during the slave and Jim Crow eras but much less significant after 1965, and social and cultural differences. (Today we also have a fourth, unconscious discrimination by the majority or systemic racism, but it doesn’t stand up to the overt systemic laws against discrimination and affirmative action programs.) Tom Sowell has shown that all over the world different cultures have results that are different in financial and educational accomplishments and behavioral and crime statistics. ( See Race And Culture). While cultural mores never completely determine outcomes, they have a pretty good predictive value. Most people would predict that if a subgroup has has high correlations to drug use, gang membership, antipathy to educational values, and single parent homelife the subgroup as a whole will have less than equal representation in success stories. Again no individual’s life is determined by these factors, there are millions of exceptions. Nevertheless, culture seems a better explanatory variable than genetic and deliberate discrimination. Perhaps culture should not be considered a root cause but rather a root reason which can be overcome. Anyway, well put Dennis
Did anyone really think that judge Biggs would come to a ruling that would dictate knowledge, ability and individualism as a criteria for acceptance? Maybe James Watson theory should be considered?
No need to define ” Critical Mass”…..despite it being a controlling factor in the decision making process re the number of “minority” students admitted to the University?
Judge Biggs said it was not a quota and Race was not a defining criteria for admissions by the University…..huh?
Democrats are like Leopards in that they do not change their Spots….or in Biggs’ case….belief in Affirmative Action no matter how it is disguised or needed.
Critical Mass is a quota pure and simple….the actual number or percentages might vary….but it is a quota or it would not exist.
Her decision defies logic.
How does the University measure the achievement of. “Critical Mass” without counting Heads of the various minorities in its classes?
If achieving Critical Mass is not required….why have it, use it, consider it, even mention it?
Judges such as Biggs is one of the problems with our Judicial System….it is full of bias.
Very interesting evolution of thinking here. Affirmative action, properly understood, was an effort to compensate for past discrimination. The reasoning was simple: African Americans suffered past discrimination and thus we should adjust our merit based education procedures to help them. The belief was that had there been no past discrimination, there would be no disparties in eductional performance. In Bakke, the court forbade this approace but Powell dreamt up the “diversity” rationale which forever changed race jurisprudence. The entire government/educational/corporate, and military bureaucracy clung to this fiction to justify and expand something that was previously ruled improper. And it spread like a cancer. So now we have reached a point where the justification for diversity is not to help victims of past discrimination but to benefit white elites whose careers and lives will be more enriched by exposure to black students. The average minority student, who has artificially gained admission to a school he or she will probably never graduate from (another fact overlooked), is now nothing but proverbial window dressing or a decorative ornament for the resumes of upper middle class and privileged white kids who can preposterously claim that they have been cultually enriced by sitting next to someone in class who happens to have different skin color. The time has come, as per Sandra Day O’Connor, to get rid of this anti American form of thinking.
I’m all for affirmative action. For Trumpists.
Being a low information and proudly anti-science citizen eschewing higher education because it smacks of elitism is no way to go through life.
Even affirmative action wouldn’t help Bidenistas.
The survey of more than 1,000 privately held businesses taken between May 24-June 14 found that 59% of respondents “strongly or somewhat” approve of the way the Trump administration has handled business-related issues. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/27/wilmington-trust-survey-trump-has-strong-support-from-small-business.html
CNBC polling would indicate that business owners supported Trump, and I doubt that any of them would fall into your definition.
Only someone with low self esteem puts people down to counter the negative emotions they feel. Worse, using these hackneyed phrases indicates a lack of creativity or intelligence or both.
“CNBC polling would indicate that business owners supported Trump, and I doubt that any of them would fall into your definition.”
They are not the ones attending Trump and Q-Anon rallies nor storming the Capitol.
“Only someone with low self esteem puts people down to counter the negative emotions they feel. Worse, using these hackneyed phrases indicates a lack of creativity or intelligence or both.”
Definitely both.
JeffSilbeman,
Ignorance can be solved by “listening” and “learning,” and not by a loose tongue that has no sense of reality.
Wiseoldowl says:
“Ignorance can be solved by “listening” and “learning,” and not by a loose tongue that has no sense of reality.”
Here’s my evidence:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/11/10/the-dance-of-the-dunces-trump-clinton-election-republican-democrat/
I rest my case.
Jeff, if you rest your case on the conclusion of this long and disjointed rant, which is:
“Democracy is the rule of the people, but the people are in many ways unfit to rule.”
Then your case is dismissed as stupid.
“Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.”
-Mencken