Below is yesterday’s column on CNN.com on the ruling in the Michigan affirmative action case, which we discussed earlier this week. I was asked to write a response to the decision and jumped at the opportunity to feature a couple of the GW “justices” from my Constitution and the Supreme Court seminar. The class meets in the Spring Term and reviews one case a week from the docket of the Supreme Court for that term. We read and discuss a selection of briefs filed in each case and the lower court opinion. The “justices” then rule on the merits, explaining their own take on the underlying legal issues and the role of the Court in the controversy. We then take a separate vote to predict what that “other” Supreme Court will do. Over the years, I have found that the students are remarkably accurate in their predictions, far more accurate than most commentators. Indeed, I have often found the opinions of the GW Court to be superior to its more famous counterpart on Capitol Hill. At the end of the term, each student writes a majority opinion and either a dissenting opinion or concurring opinion. They can choose any case from the current term. Of course, public commentary following the release of a decision might raise some questions of judicial ethics, we can at least claim to have been more circumspect than some of the members of that “other” Court. So here is the column from CNN and thank you Justices Yvette Butler and Vincent Cirilli.
Continue reading “The Michigan Affirmative Action Case: Two [GW] Justices Face Off On CNN”
