Word: amicus
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Writing six different opinions totaling 154 pages, the Justices were as torn by the issue as was the rest of the nation. The case had attracted 61 amicus curiae briefs, the most that had ever been submitted in the history of the court. "The Justices really agonized," said an inside observer. Three times the opinions were sent to the printer only to be pulled back for additions, deletions and revisions. The version finally made public was the fourth. Blackmun, in particular, had trouble making up his mind. Though he and Burger have often been paired as the Nixon-appointed...
Powell's opinion embraces the policies of the Harvard College admissions office, as outlined in Harvard's amicus brief on the case, as "an illuminating example" of the kind of program the Court's decision points to. Harvard's policy, Powell favorably remarks, does not focus on admitting the minority candidate, but rather emphasizes the broader concept of "diversity." Indeed, nowhere in the amicus brief Harvard filed in support of U.C. Davis does the phrase "affirmative action" come into play...
According to Daniel Steiner '54, general counsel to the University and one of the authors of Harvard's amicus brief, "Until ten years ago, diversity at Harvard simply meant an all-white student body." The change the concept of diversity has undergone since then is the product of "large forces released in our society in the late '60s," Steiner says, and he admits there is nothing down on paper to prevent Harvard from returning to its earlier concept of diversity...
...people who haven't had the opportunity to get a good education." Although the Powell opinion leans toward upholding the industrial use of quotas, it does not address the issue directly. In the opinion of Allan M. Dershowitz, professor of Law and the author of a pro-Bakke amicus brief for the American Jewish Congress and several other organizations, the Court's decision leaves open the possibility of outlawing such quotas...
Minority recruitment, the article states, was instituted by Harvard as simply another means to achieve educational diversity. Harvard did not take the position that it has a social or educational obligation to equal opportunity education or to minority recruitment. Harvard's amicus curiae brief for the Bakke case, for example, makes no plea for commitment to minority education...