ohwilleke

I stand before you admitting that I was wrong. I predicted that the U.S. Supreme Court would find that both U of M Law School and U of M Undergrad affirmative action programs were unconstitutional by a 5-4 vote.

In fact that U of M law school program was upheld in an O'Connor decision by 5-4 (the usual suspects), and the U of M undergrad program was shot down in a 6-3 vote.

Basically, the holding was that racial diversity is a valid purpose. That this is still remedial and can't last forever, perhaps 25 more years. That you must consider the whole person rather than deciding simply based on points or quotas for race. And that when significant affirmative action is necessary to obtain a "critical mass" of minority students that this is O.K.

The Court's decision puts to Bakke case decided in the 1970s in a weird situation where the deciding vote was a one person opinion in a court split 4-1-4, on more solid ground.