BY Jaquille Douarnynney Justin Cotto Corey Singleton Brittany Lewonka Lezeny Nunez

 Affirmative action refers to policies that take factors including "race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or national origin" into consideration in order to benefit an underrepresented group "in areas of employment, education, and business".

 Do you think affirmative action should still be in effect today? Why or why not?

 Affirmative action is intended to promote the opportunities of defined groups within a society.  It is often instituted in government and educational settings to ensure that minority groups within a society are included in all programs.  The stated justification for affirmative action by its proponents is that it helps to compensate for past discrimination, persecution or exploitation by the ruling class of a culture, and to address existing discrimination.  The implementation of affirmative action, especially in the United States, is considered by its proponents to be justified by disparate impact.

 Affirmative action is a federal agenda initiated in the 1960s that’s designed to counteract historic discrimination faced by ethnic minorities, women and other underrepresented groups.  To foster diversity and compensate for the ways such groups have historically been excluded, institutions with affirmative action programs prioritize the inclusion of minority groups in the employment, education and government sectors, among others.  Affirmative Action is also known as equal opportunity, race-based preferences for example women and minorities are allowed entry into professions formerly off limits to them. Most commonly, colleges use this action to promote diversity among their campus in order to attract students from all backgrounds to apply.

 There are still issues and controversies surrounding affirmative action are not expected to be resolved and perhaps not even in my lifetime.  For now, we can only hope that we can all look at the issue sociological and objective, rather than personal, point of view and at least understand positions, even if we don’t agree with it.

 It allows minority students and workers who start at a disadvantage get a boost to succeed.  Affirmative action creates diversity.  Special preference is given to minorities to make up for years of discrimination.  It may help to break stereotypes.

 It may disparage some minorities from trying to succeed on their own.  It may hinder the progression of not making decisions based on race.  Affirmative action may create endorsement-like feelings towards discrimination.  Because of affirmative action, a minority may beat out someone more capable for a job or school, simply because of race or gender.

 The Seattle School District allowed students to apply to any high school in the District. Since certain schools often became oversubscribed when too many students chose them as their first choice, the District used a system of tiebreakers to decide which students would be admitted to the popular schools. The second most important tiebreaker was a racial factor intended to maintain racial diversity. If the racial demographics of any school's student body deviated by more than a predetermined number of percentage points from those of Seattle's total student population (approximately 40% white and 60% non- white), the racial tiebreaker went into effect. At a particular school either whites or non-whites could be favored for admission depending on which race would bring the racial balance closer to the goal.

 A non-profit group, Parents Involved in Community Schools (Parents), sued the District, arguing that the racial tiebreaker violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as well as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Washington state law. A federal District Court dismissed the suit, upholding the tiebreaker.  Under the Supreme Court's precedents on racial classification in higher education, Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger, race-based classifications must be directed toward a "compelling government interest" and must be "narrowly tailored" to that interest.

 1) Do the decisions in Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger apply to public high school students?  2) Is racial diversity a compelling interest that can justify the use of race in selecting students for admission to public high schools?  3) Does a school district that normally permits a student to attend the high school of her choice violate the Equal Protection Clause by denying the student admission to her chosen school because of her race in an effort to achieve a desired racial balance?

 No, no, and yes. By a 5-4 vote, the Court applied a "strict scrutiny" framework and found the District's racial tiebreaker plan unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.  Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the plurality opinion that "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." The Court acknowledged that it had previously held that racial diversity can be a compelling government interest in university admissions, but it ruled that "the present cases are not governed by Grutter."  Unlike the cases pertaining to higher education, the District's plan involved no individualized consideration of students, and it employed a very limited notion of diversity ("white" and "non-white"). The plans also lacked the narrow tailoring that is necessary for race-conscious programs. The District also failed to show that its objectives could not have been met with non-race-conscious means. In a separate opinion concurring in the judgment, Justice Kennedy agreed that the District's use of race was unconstitutional but stressed that public schools may sometimes consider race to ensure equal educational opportunity.

 Allan Bakke, a thirty-five-year-old white man, had twice applied for admission to the University of California Medical School at Davis. He was rejected both times.  The school reserved sixteen places in each entering class of one hundred for "qualified" minorities, as part of the university's affirmative action program, in an effort to redress longstanding, unfair minority exclusions from the medical profession.  Bakke's qualifications (college GPA and test scores) exceeded those of any of the minority students admitted in the two years Bakke's applications were rejected.  Bakke contended, first in the California courts, then in the Supreme Court, that he was excluded from admission solely on the basis of race.

 Did the University of California violate the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, by practicing an affirmative action policy that resulted in the repeated rejection of Bakke's application for admission to its medical school?

 No and yes. There was no single majority opinion. Four of the justices contended that any racial quota system supported by government violated the Civil Rights Act of Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr., agreed, casting the deciding vote ordering the medical school to admit Bakke.  However, in his opinion, Powell argued that the rigid use of racial quotas as employed at the school violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The remaining four justices held that the use of race as a criterion in admissions decisions in higher education was constitutionally permissible.  So, the Court managed to minimize white opposition to the goal of equality (by finding for Bakke) while extending gains for racial minorities through affirmative action

 In 1983, the City Council of Richmond, Virginia adopted regulations that required companies awarded city construction contracts to subcontract 30 percent of their business to minority business enterprises. The J.A. Croson Company, which lost its contract because of the 30 percent set-aside, brought suit against the city.  The Supreme Court held that the city of Richmond's minority set-aside program, which gave preference to minority business enterprises (MBE) in the awarding of municipal contracts, was unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause. The Court found that the city failed to identify both the need for remedial action and that other non-discriminatory remedies would be insufficient.  Croson involved a minority set-aside program in the awarding of municipal contracts. Richmond, with a black population of just over 50 percent, had set a 30 percent goal in the awarding of city construction contracts, based on its findings that local, state, and national patterns of discrimination had resulted in all but complete lack of access for minority-owned businesses.

 Did the Richmond law violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?  In a 6-to-3 decision, the Court held that "generalized assertions" of past racial discrimination could not justify "rigid" racial quotas for the awarding of public contracts. Justice O'Connor's opinion noted that the 30 percent quota could not be tied to "any injury suffered by anyone," and was an impermissible employment of a suspect classification.  O'Connor further held that allowing claims of past discrimination to serve as the basis for racial quotas would actually subvert constitutional values: "The dream of a Nation of equal citizens in a society where race is irrelevant to personal opportunity and achievement would be lost in a mosaic of shifting preferences based on inherently immeasurable claims of past wrongs."

 Under the collective bargaining agreement between the Jackson Board of Education (Board) and a teachers' union, teachers with the most seniority would not be laid off. It was also agreed not to lay off a percentage of minority personnel that exceeded the percentage of minority personnel employed at the time of a layoff.  When the schools laid off some nonminority teachers, while retaining other minority teachers with less seniority, Wendy Wygant, a displaced nonminority teacher, challenged the layoff in district court.  Holding that the Board could grant racial preferences without grounding them on prior discrimination findings and that the preferences did not violate the Equal Protection Clause, since they remedied discrimination by providing "role models" for minority students, the District Court upheld the layoff provision's constitutionality. When the appeals court affirmed, the Supreme Court granted Wygant certiorari.

 Did the collective bargaining agreement provision for race-based layoffs violate the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause?  Yes. In a 5-to-4 decision, the Court argued that Wygant's layoff stemmed from race and, therefore, violated the Equal Protection Clause. The Court noted that the government, when embarking on affirmative action, had two duties: first, to justify racial classification with a compelling state interest and second, to demonstrate that its chosen means were narrowly tailored to its purpose.  Regarding the first, the Court rejected the lower court's argument that racial preferences were justified because the percentage of minority students exceeded the percentage of minority teachers. At best, this argument implied a separate but equal system, which the Court rejected in Brown v. Board of Education. Instead, racial preferences had to be based on prior discrimination.

 The concept behind this picture shows how affirmative action (gender) is used in regards to the workforce.  This picture has the concept of male, female, black, white, Asian, Hispanic, whatever religion or race. It doesn’t matter. Everybody should be able to do everything together.

 Affirmative Action is a very controversial law and most people question if it is fair. I personally believe it is fair and necessary in hopes that one day it will completely break down racial tension and discrimination against minorities. Also I think that it truly provides an equal opportunity for those who didn't have one.