The original usage of the phrase is reasonable enough[0], but that's not what this lawsuit was about.
[0] > On March 6, 1961, shortly after taking office, President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 10925, which required all federal contractors to take “affirmative action”—the first use of the phrase in this context—to ensure all job applicants and employees were treated equally, regardless of race, creed, color or national origin. https://www.history.com/topics/us-government-and-politics/af...
We saw this with Roe last year.
What changed is the make-up of the court; otherwise, apparently affirmative action's unconstitutionality was just realized like a revelation from God and every previous court (federal and Supreme) was wrong.
Racial rancor, and racism in general -- anti black racism in particular -- has probably increased since 2003; at least in the public sphere - hopefully this ruling is not a part of that milieu.
If they only selectively struck them down in favor of one group or another, then that would be a different matter.
This is in juxtaposition to civil law systems that are based on codified legislation, for example in France or Germany.
That's been in place for a LONG time, it dates all the way back to the separation of church and state decision being based on a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote.
Hell Roe v. Wade itself is an example.
https://gspp.berkeley.edu/research-and-impact/publications/w...
> In her opinion in Grutter v. Bollinger, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor concluded that affirmative action in college admissions is justifiable, but not in perpetuity: “We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest [in student body diversity] approved today.”
There are lots of criticisms of the SC, but I don't see why everything they rule should be absolute ground truth forever. They can (and do) revisit cases for good reason.
That's modern liberal opinion news talking. It's about law. AA is a direct contradiction to the 14th amendment and it dilutes it. I'm sure just about everyone, including previously and currently oppressed minorities would prefer the protections of 14th amendment over the protections of AA.
Can you give an example of a government program that takes race into consideration other than Affirmative Action programs?
I don't like many recent rulings from SCOTUS, but intellectual honesty forces me to admit that when the pendulum was on the other side, the same thing happened with different allegiances.
Almost as if the Robert's court concluded there is no point in being powerful if you can't rule, even though ruling is beyond the scope of all courts.
As for Roe V. Wade being codified, this was a moot point at the time because you had a Constitutional right to an abortion -- your right to an abortion was codified in the Constitution, a law would have been redundant.
I think when the status quo requires on someone's stretched interpretation of a series of things, and this status quo is very important to people, it's on lawmakers to make the rules unambiguous.
A lot of the logic of Roe v Wade was based on viability outside of a womb based on medical science of the time.
Right in the decision of affirmative action there is admission that it will need to be revisited.
Not really, 12 weeks are pretty common, and most european countries fit in 10-14 weeks, with just few exceptions like UK and Netherlands.
these policies of racial discrimination aren't helping anyone. they don't help the people who didn't deserve the spots in the first place, and they don't help the people that are being robbed of the spots they deserve.
Congress cannot override this with a law. It would require an amendment to the Constitution, which is more involved. Considering that not even CA could pass a law to allow affirmative action in higher education, it would be impossible for such an amendment to be passed and ratified by the states.
The main opinion was actually following a line of cases using 14th Amendment jurisprudence to guide the interpetation of similar text in Title VI of the the Civil Rights Act of 1964, so, yes, Congress can override it by changing the text of the statute, which is in principal what is actually being applied.
The portion of the 14th Amendment whose interprtation was imported doesn’t bind either private actors or the federal government, so isn’t directly applicable on its own.
> Held: Harvard’s and UNC’s admissions programs violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The concurrence by Gorsuch also makes clear that the majority opinion was based on the Constitution, not Title VI.
> Today, the Court holds that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment does not tolerate this practice. I write to emphasize that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not either.
What are you seeing that indicates that the majority opinion was based on Title VI?