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...case, Ricci v. DeStefano, is renewing debate over affirmative action, not least because it reverses a judgment signed off on by Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. But the controversy over such programs goes back decades. It was President Lyndon Johnson who first attempted to combat inequality with laws taking race, ethnicity and gender into account. In a 1965 speech at Howard University, he argued that one could not expect a person "who, for years, has been hobbled by chains" to be able to compete with everyone else. Since then, supporters have praised the employment and education opportunities affirmative action...
...court has long walked a fine line on the issue, rolling back some affirmative-action initiatives and supporting others. In 1978 it agreed that race-based quotas in university admissions amounted to "reverse discrimination." And concurring in 1995's Adarand Constructors Inc. v. Peņa, which called for "strict scrutiny" in identifying discrimination to justify affirmative-action programs, Justice Clarence Thomas argued that such policies "stamp minorities with a badge of inferiority." Trying to balance competing concerns has tripped up employers and admissions officers for decades. In the wake of the Ricci ruling, it will be even trickier...
...Congress--an authority not found in the Constitution--and increasingly thwart the popular will, Burns argues. From blocking Reconstruction-era civil rights to slowing the New Deal, the court's pro-business ideologues have time and again created "a chokepoint for progressive reforms." More recently, the divisive Bush v. Gore ruling and far-right Roberts Court offer Burns little comfort. His partisan analysis will have dissenters, but Burns' elegant volume merits attention for its depth and scope, even if his radical solutions--including ignoring court rulings--would prompt a crisis all their...
...Race In the most anticipated case on its docket, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with a group of white and Hispanic firefighters who sued after their passing scores on a promotion exam were thrown out because black applicants performed poorly on the test. The workplace-discrimination case, Ricci v. DeStefano, had drawn intense scrutiny because Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor had come to the opposite conclusion while sitting on a federal appeals court. The narrow 5-4 ruling, issued on the final day of the term, found that officials in New Haven, Conn., relied too heavily on "raw racial results...
...mainstream' have no basis in her record of constitutional cases." Instead, Youn argues, her judicial profile is "very much in line with her colleagues." The study gives a brief overview of the term "judicial activism" and explains how it has been saddled with negative connotations since Marbury v. Madison established the court's power of judicial review in 1803. Specifics of the cases reviewed aren't available in the report, but the study nonetheless paints a good statistical portrait of what might be expected if Sonia Sotomayor is confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice...