[Nakura]

After nearly nine months the Supreme Court has made a rather lackluster decision on Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin. Nine months of deliberation has yielded a thirteen page opinion of the court and a near unanimous 7-1 decision. The decision was one that largely avoided the topic of affirmative action altogether, opting instead to require universities to employ a "more stringent" process when handling affirmative action.

Barack Obama was supremely disappointed in the decision of the court, having hoped they would have sided with lower courts in keeping as few regulations and oversight on affirmative action as possible. Barack Obama and the left aren't the only ones disappointed with this ruling, however, as many on the right believe that the court's decision was largely symbolic and should have struck down affirmative action as unconstitutional in it's entirety.

What do you think of the Supreme Court's decision? Do you believe their decision was too harsh, as many liberals claims? Or perhaps it was too lenient, as many conservatives and libertarians claim? Do you believe that colleges should be forced to deny better qualified individuals from attending their school, simply because they aren't a minority? Is such an act unconstitutional?

You can read the 13 page opinion of the court here: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/supreme-court-ruling-on-affirmative-action-fischer-v-university-of-texas-at-austin-et-al-93236.html

[MP-Ryan]

I live in a country with an "Employment Equity Act" instead of affirmative action policies, so I'm lucky in that regard, though it might best be thought of as 'affirmative action light.'

The classical liberal in me (not what 'liberal' means in the US, mind) hates affirmative action policies - they segregate, they perpetuate inequality, and they provide special treatment to groups of people based on utterly meaningless traits.

The realist in me acknowledges that affirmative action is a necessary evil in the contemporary United States because of past legal, social, and policy mistakes.

The court probably struck the right balance.  You can't eliminate AA entirely, but it requires strict regulation to prevent a move from AA to simple discrimination against non-AA-targeted groups.

[Klaustrophobia]

combating racism with racism is an unbelievably horrid idea.  strike it down, no stipulations, no "stringent requirements" to use it.

[Turambar]

Is the playing field level now?  Do minorities have an equal chance at success?  No?  Then why are we kicking the ladder?

[666maslo666]

Affirmative action is racism, plain and simple. What I would like to help disadvantaged minorities are programs which do not perpetuate the worst kinds of discrimination, for example educational, material or monetary aid that does not directly hurt others. But when you have one place of employment/study, and you deny it to someone because of their race, then that is an injustice to the individual, no matter if black or white or asian. Affirmative action is collective punishment, and what is even worse, enacted on individual people. Completely unacceptable, IMHO. 

[Apollo]

Throw out that crap. Our country's race relations are still less than ideal and the last thing you want to do is give the majority a legitimate complaint. It just makes everybody mad at each other and furthers racism.

[Luis Dias]

I'm willing to debate the matter of whether AA should be abolished or not, because I can see the racism point about it and as Morgan Freeman once pointed out, the best course of action should probably be to stop talking about it at all.

However, to start this debate I have the precondition that we should accept a wider liberal policy of a massive "socialism" of education and healthcare, which could be achieved either by leftist or rightist means (the right wing way to go about it is obviously something to do with "negative income tax" or similar methods), so that the very poor have actual access to what some gullible americans still call "the american dream", etc.

If this precondition is not met, I don't want to hear a word about AA at all.

[BloodEagle]

If this precondition is not met, I don't want to hear a word about AA at all.

 

Did you mean to word that that way?

[Luis Dias]

I meant it as saying that I want to hear nothing about changing present AA.

[Phantom Hoover]

(In reply to BloodEagle) I don't think so, and I agree with his point. You have to be pretty well-off to get to that stage in the selection process for jobs or university in the first place, black or white; so my major beef with affirmative action in its present form is that it reinforces class inequality and doesn't really do much to reduce racial inequality.

[swashmebuckle]

Since we obviously can't fight racism with racism, I will personally lead the fight against racism by pretending that it doesn't exist. Conveniently, that's what I was doing anyway! Uhg.