Volume 45, Number 17 · November 5, 1998
Is Affirmative Action Doomed?
By Ronald Dworkin
Is affirmative action unconstitutional? Does it violate the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of 'equal protection of the laws' for universities to give preference to blacks and other minorities in the fierce competition for student places, as the best of our universities have done for thirty years? In 1978, the late Justice Lewis Powell, in his opinion in the Supreme Court's famous Bakke decision, ruled that racial preferences are permissible if their purpose is to improve racial diversity among students, and if they do not stipulate fixed minority quotas, but take race into account as one factor among many. Since four other justices in that case would have upheld even a quota system, five of the nine agreed that plans meeting Powell's tests were constitutional.
Feature, 6992 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |