June 29, 2015

The Supreme Court gets back to the affirmative action question it sent back to the 5th Circuit.

Cert. granted in Fisher v. University of Texas.
The Fisher case had been relisted *five* times before the grant today. I think that, given the five relists, many people are probably a bit surprised by the grant. But this just goes to show you that you never know what's going on behind the scenes. 
ADDED: From the link, which goes to SCOTUSblog:
Fisher grant is yet another good example of why it makes little sense to think of the Court as "moving left" even though it IS accurate to say that the liberal wing of the Court has prevailed more often this year than in previous years. The question presented is whether a compromise position well right of the Harvard Plan approved in Bakke will be struck down.

12 comments:

MayBee said...

Do the Left judges ever separate their opinions any more?

I remember when the big complaint in politics was the right was always in "lockstep". Hah! Remember how Democrats weren't an organized party (Will Rogers)? Or were like herding cats? Who is the herd now?

Bob Ellison said...

MayBee, the Democratic Party used to be a coalition of folks both right and left, northern and southern. It is not that anymore. It is now a group of statist leftists, money-grubbing corporatists, atheists, and just plain fools.

tim maguire said...

The court isn't moving left, it's just issuing more liberal-friendly opinions...I see, thanks for clearing that up.

mccullough said...

Affirmative action is finished in 2016. Can't keep discriminating against Asian Americans. O'Connor said in 2003 she assumed it would be gone within 25 years. She was right. Roberts gave a do-over but the universities and lower federal courts didn't take the hint.

Rick said...

mccullough said...Affirmative action is finished in 2016. Can't keep discriminating against Asian Americans.

This doesn't mean the death of race preferences (distinguished from non-preferential AA like non-traditional advertising). The point has always been to discriminate against whites and for blacks, other groups are only included because it provides an argument. But as with the gay marriage case the facade isn't a critical factor. Sure supporters would rather have the facade and face less criticism, but they'll take the criticism if they have to. So they'll drop or significantly increase the quotas for Asians and maintain the rest of the system.

damikesc said...

Fisher grant is yet another good example of why it makes little sense to think of the Court as "moving left" even though it IS accurate to say that the liberal wing of the Court has prevailed more often this year than in previous years.

Ummm....what?

How many years did the Left wing of the court not prevail an awful lot? In the major cases, their success rate is astonishing.

Do the Left judges ever separate their opinions any more?

Why does the media NEVER note that nobody --- literally nobody --- ever says that "Kagan or Sotomayor are the swing vote"? Nobody ever once asks "How will Breyer or Ginsburg decide?"

It's ALWAYS the "conservative" justices who might rule differently.

I'd argue that the Leftist justices are intellectual lightweights (Kagan is a mid-level functional retard and Sotomayor, bless her heart, sure does try real hard. Breyer has the intellectual firepower of a wet noodle and Ginsburg died 5 years ago and her body hasn't noticed yet) and embarrassments to the bench --- but lawyers are notoriously lacking in shame and the bench is a joke as is.

Brando said...

"Why does the media NEVER note that nobody --- literally nobody --- ever says that "Kagan or Sotomayor are the swing vote"? Nobody ever once asks "How will Breyer or Ginsburg decide?""

Both sad and true. It really says something about a justice when people can automatically predict where you'll come down on a politically charged case based solely on the justice's policy preferences (rather than their legal philosophy).

But then, the Left starts from the proposition that the decisions of Kagan et al are the correct, proper and legally sound ones, and it is always the Scalia wing that is off their rocker. Self reflection is not a quality held by the modern Left.

Brando said...

Wherever they come down, it would be nice to get an actual real rule of law out of this--either "yes, race can be used in any case where the government is trying to do good!" which though stupid, at least signals what the Court considers acceptable, or "no, government can't use race, full stop". This "sometimes you can, but you need a really good reason, and you can't be too obvious about it, and you can't use it too much..." standard is O'Connor's pathetic legacy.

n.n said...

Class diversity. Sounds familiar. Raise the "Stars and Bars" over the DNC.

Bob Ellison said...

I'd like to see that. Confederate flags at the Democrat convention. A little truth might do some good. The Democrats are the haters, the slavers, and the racists.

Lewis Wetzel said...

It takes an awesome lack of self-awareness to work for CNN these days:
Hours after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states, Hillary Clinton told hundreds of Virginia Democrats on Friday that "Across the board, (Republicans) are the party of the past, not the future."

The Democratic frontrunner was speaking at a Jefferson Jackson fundraiser for the Virginia Democratic Party
at George Mason University on a night in which she was repeatedly referred to by fellow Democrats as the next President of the United States.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/26/politics/hillary-clinton-virginia-marriage/

TangoMan said...

Sure supporters would rather have the facade and face less criticism, but they'll take the criticism if they have to. So they'll drop or significantly increase the quotas for Asians and maintain the rest of the system.

At which group's expense? This is a zero-sum game. Ron Unz's article on Meritocracy had a big influence on this debate and that article also pointed out that Gentile Whites are presently the least represented group on campus. Asians already have a better deal than gentile whites.

So who should take the hit so that more Asians can be admitted?