41 3 Race, the Affirmative Action Debate, Education, and Past Court Cases Introduction Why is affirmative action still a thing? Haven’t we finally moved past race in American society? Why do we still have to reflect on the past, notably Jim Crow segregation and slavery? Many Americans have said, “I’m not a racist, so why am I getting punished?” They also lament that the US has atoned for their racist past and should now focus on merit and rewarding hard work rather than on a person’s race. While such questions seem elementary to some, particularly social
115 5 Case Study 1: The Gratz and Grutter Supreme Court Cases against the University of Michigan Introduction Almost 40 years after the Civil Rights Act was passed and 25 years after the precedent-setting Bakke Supreme Court decision in 1978 concerning affirmative action in higher education, the Court would once again review cases that tested the viability of the policy. It is not an understatement to say that the Gratz v Bollinger and Grutter v Bollinger Supreme Court cases came about in a different social context than the Bakke case. With Bakke, the
155 6 Case Study 2: The Fisher Supreme Court Cases against the University of Texas at Austin Introduction The next and most recent case to challenge affirmative action in college admissions policies in the Supreme Court was the Fisher v University of Texas at Austin (2013 and 2016). Similar to Chapter 5, the purpose of this chapter is to understand precisely what supporters and opponents argued about this controversial policy. That is, how did they frame the debate surrounding affirmative action? We focus again on the amicus briefs submitted by social
increased rates of home ownership, asset transfers are of increasing importance for families as a way of transmitting advantages over generations. Compared to the positive impact, however, little is known about how inheritance generates disputes, tensions or dissatisfaction among family members, and how law, policy and practice play a role in this process. Drawing evidence from English court cases, this article develops categories of asset transfers over generations that cause or accentuate disputes in families, and contributes to theoretical debates on family
Affirmative action in US college admissions has inspired fierce debate as well as several US Supreme Court cases. In this significant study, leading US professors J. Scott Carter and Cameron D. Lippard provide an in-depth examination of the issue using sociological, policy and legal perspectives to frame both pro- and anti-affirmative action arguments, within past and present Supreme Court cases.
With affirmative action policy under constant attack, this is a crucial book that not only explains the state of this policy but also further deconstructs the state of race and racism in American society today.
chapter will also include a discussion of the evolution of different systems of categorization and enumeration for multiracial people, as stipulated in the US Constitution, US Census, and Supreme Court cases. 14 Race policy and multiracial Americans African slavery, anti-miscegenation laws, and the one- drop rule The history of multiracial people in the US largely follows the nation’s racialized history as a whole and parallels the history of African- Americans in particular. By the mid-1600s, the use of African slaves to provide inexpensive labor for tobacco
1 1 Introduction On June 29, 2016, a young white woman named Abigail Noel Fisher lost her long-fought case against the University of Texas at Austin (Fisher v University of Texas at Austin, 539 US 306): It [the 2016 Fisher Supreme Court Case ruling] was really disappointing, honestly, but it’s a long battle and if this case doesn’t end affirmative action, then another case will. (Abigail Fisher, quoted in Edwards, 2016) In the case and in the media surrounding it, she claimed the university’s race-conscious undergraduate admissions policy had discriminated
43 5 Mass incarceration and the collateral problems of parole Kimberly D. Richman The problem The problem of mass incarceration has turned into a massive parole and reentry problem.1 As an example, in California, there were legal pressures to reduce the prison population in the wake of the United States Supreme Court case Brown v Plata (2011), which found that the California prison system was violating human rights and creating unsafe conditions by maintaining prisons overcrowded to nearly twice their capacity. This led to a decade of reform measures
framework above, I explore that arena. ‘Backtracking’ emotions in courtrooms The three empirical samples that follow are excerpts from my field notes taken during participant observations of court cases in Sweden between 2015 and 2017. All the court cases had in some way – for example, through the media or by a claim from the state prosecutor – come to be associated with honour and HRV. A court room is what Marshall and Rossman call a ‘realistic site’. Such arenas fulfil five criteria: (a) availability; (b) a high probability of a mix of processes, individuals
provides an overview of how criminal justice institutions are responding to climate change. This entails description of court cases intended to bolster the reduction of carbon emissions and the overall role of climate change litigation in the pursuit of climate justice. The greening of the institutions of criminal justice (police, courts, prisons, community corrections) also is examined. So too is the role of the police in dealing with environmental protest and direct action, as is the place of climate change victims in the wider criminal justice narrative. The
