Essay on Affirmative Action is Reverse Discrimination

Affirmative action will also assist the university in reaching their desired diversity quota. In June, the Supreme Court ruled that universities can consider race as one of the main

Sixty-two years ago, the Supreme Court ruled the “separate but equal” doctrine unconstitutional. The decision from the Plessy v. Ferguson case was lawfully denounced by the Brown v. Board of Education. The Brown case, which was initiated by the members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), served as a stimulus for challenging segregation in all areas of society, especially in public educational institutions. Among the support for the desegregation in school systems, there was a young yet compelling voice who was heard by numerous ears in the rural city in Farmville, Alabama. The virtuous and determined Barbara Johns, who was only a high school student then led her tiny, hovel-like school’s student body and the Farmville community to file a lawsuit in the hope of terminating the inequality in regards to the educational system.

Two more cases that aroused much debate on the issue were the 2003 cases of Gratz vs. Bollinger and Grutter vs. Bollinger, in which two more-than-qualified students applied to the University of Michigan and were denied due to acceptance policies. The two women, Jennifer Gratz and Barbara Grutter, took their cases to the Supreme Court with the plea that the University of Michigan is “treating people differently based on skin color, and that is unconstitutional” (Mears). The university openly stated that they have a point system in their acceptance process in which students receive extra point if they are of minority status. Mary Sue Coleman, the president of the University of Michigan stated, “[W]e

Affirmative action was created to assist minority groups against discrimination, but affirmative action does more harm than what it can do to help. Affirmative action was created with the intention of leveling the playing field so that everyone can have an equal opportunity to be hired or accepted in to a school, but it does the opposite of what it is meant to do. Affirmative action is reverse discrimination against white males, lesser qualified people are admitted into jobs and colleges, and not all people have an equal opportunity to advance.

This case shows how men and women of all races can be affected by the two headed monster called affirmative action. Affirmative action was established so that members of society such women, minorities or those with handicaps would be guaranteed an honest opportunity to achieve goals, professions or pursue higher education without discrimination. However, when a person’s sex, nationality, social settings and race compete against one another even those the act is intended to protect become

The case known as Fisher v. University of Texas, was to chosen to be first heard by the Supreme Court in late 2012. It entails a case on affirmative action. Abigail Fisher felt that she had been discriminated against because of her race. She also claimed to have had higher qualifications than her counterparts, and therefore deserved to be admitted into the University of Texas. According to the Washington Post, the suit brought on by Fisher is the first time that the court has revisited affirmative action since its landmark ruling in the 2003

Legal Question: The legal issue presented in this case ultimately questioned the University of Michigan’s admission policy which sought a more diverse student body. The court addressed whether the University of Michigan’s use of racial preferences in the admission process violated

Abigail Fisher and Rachel Multer Michalewicz were just two young women from Texas trying to get into their dream school. In 2008 the young women applied at the University of Texas. The two women, both white, filed suit, alleging that the University had discriminated against them on the basis of their race in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Equal Protection Clause being a clause that allows no state to deny any person within its jurisdiction “the equal protection of the law”.

The University of Texas at Austin is a world renown school with an acceptance rate of 40.2% as of 2013. Abigail Fisher, a white woman from Texas, sued the University of Texas for racial discrimination in the university’s admission program. Ms. Fisher lost her district court case and the Fifth Circuit Case three to zero; but the Supreme Court accepted her appeal for another trial. Due to Ms. Fisher not being able to attend The University of Texas, she was accepted into Louisiana State University shortly after. At LSU, she filed the lawsuit against the University of Texas to prohibit the university to use race as a factor in the future admission process.

Plaintiff – “The plaintiff is defending a nineteen-year-old Latino male who was admitted to UMCP in the fall of 1989. As an applicant to UMCP, claimant had an accomplished scholastic record: his Scholastic Aptitude Test score was 1340, out of a possible 1600; his grade point average as calculated by his high school was over 4.0 (as calculated by UMCP, his grade point average was 3.56); and he actively participated in several extracurricular activities.” (Podberesky v. Kirwan, 956F. 2d-52- court of Appeals, 4th Circuit 1992, 1992) Because of his academic pedigree, the Hispanic male wants to be considered for admittance as well as university scholarships. The scholarship that he would like to be considered for is for African American students until it was revised to include minority students.

Another case involving the affirmative action policies was the Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. This is another case of “seat holding” in where the school admission policy was reserving a number of sets for minority applicants. Bakke, a white applicant, was denied twice to the medical school. Minorities were allowed admittance with low-test scores though Bakke had high MCAT scores, GPA, and benchmarks (McBride, 2007). The result of the whole trial was that the California Supreme Court found that the system explicitly discriminated against racial groups and stated, “No applicant may be rejected because of his race, in favor of another who is less, as measured by standards applied without regard to race,” (McBride, 2007). The medical school was then ordered to shut down their quota system.

She claimed that the reason for this was because of the affirmative action policy that the university had in place. The case gained traction and was taken to the Supreme Court. This also sparked up a national conversation about affirmative action throughout the nation. An article in the New York Times had quotes from some of the Justices stating that it is necessary to have affirmative action that way the classroom can stay diversified (Liptak

In a CNN article, a girl named Abigail Noel Fisher files a lawsuit against the University of Texas after being rejected her application into the university. She claims that this being a kind of discrimination and that we should have diversity in colleges. The Supreme Court also agrees what she files for presents a race issue. Abigail participated in multiple extra circular activates and volunteer work and scored the top 80% of her class so she should be in U.T. Abigail dreamt and compassionate about this since she was in second grade and wanted to go to the college because to continue a tradition in her family and friends which seems understandable. Although she participated in many activates, she showed to be under the top 10% which U.T accepts

minority applicants was constitutional. Bakke sued the University of California for violating the Civil Right Act of 1964. The Supreme Court of California agreed and ruled that Bakke being excluded out of 16 out of 100 spots simply because of race was discrimination(Mcbride,2005). Although the Affirmative Action was utilized to protect African Americas who have been historical discriminated against more than Caucasians because of the racial quota system that fact is irrelevant to the case (Mcbride,2005).

When addressing legal issues of diversity in the modern day era, one main topic is brought to discussion, affirmative action. It was put into place by the federal government in the 1960’s and was initially developed to close the gap in relation to the privileged majority and the unprivileged minority in America (Aguirre Jr. & Martinez, 2003). While it has been controversial since its origin, it remains controversial as critics argue it tries to equalize the impact of so many