Michigan Civil Rights Initiative Upheld By Supreme Court

prop 2 scheutte

A huge blow for freedom was struck today when the Supreme Court ruled 6-2 that the voters of the state of Michigan actually have the right to govern themselves.

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Background

In 2003, the Supreme Court ruled in a case known as Grutter v. Bollinger ruled that University of Michigan could use race as one factor in admissions. This was a 5-4 decision authored by Sandra Day O’Connor.

In response, Jennifer Gratz, lead plaintiff in the partner suit to Grutter called Gratz v. Bollinger which outlawed the racialist point system the University of Michigan’s used for undergraduate admissions, Ward Connerly and others organized a petition drive to get the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative on the ballot in 2006 where it became known as Prop 2.

Despite having been attacked by the state government, the race grievance industry, and the education industry and outspent by nearly 4:1, the ballot initiative received nearly 58% of the vote.

Court Challenges

As we all know, the left is only in favor of voting outcomes when they win. This case was no different. The University of Michigan, several cities, and various race grievance groups filed lawsuits to overturn Prop 2.

In November 2012, the 6th US Circuit overturned Prop 2

In 2012, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati, ruled by a vote of 8 to 7 that the initiative violated the federal Constitution’s equal protection clause. The appeals court majority said the problem with the law was that it restructured the state’s political process by making it harder for disfavored minorities to press for change.

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The Michigan Attorney General, Bill Scheutte, appealed to the US Supreme Court and a decision in that case, known as Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action was handed down today.

This case is not about the constitutionality, or the merits, of race-conscious admissions policies in higher education. Here, the principle that the consideration of race in admissions is permissible when certain conditions are met is not being challenged. Rather, the question concerns whether, and in what manner, voters in the States may choose to prohibit the consideration of such racial preferences. Where States have prohibited race-conscious admissions policies, universities have responded by experimenting “with a wide variety of alternative approaches.” Grutter, supra, at 342. The decision by Michigan voters reflects the ongoing national dialogue about such practices.

Looking Forward

Granted, race relations has left an odious stain on the history of the nation. But at some point enough is enough. We are now 149 years removed from Appomattox and a half century from the Civil Rights Act of 1964. At some point society has done all it can do to rectify those injustices now at least a half century old and must look to healing divisions rather than perpetuating them. Affirmative action, at its core, is racist. It works on the assumption that black and Hispanic children, though not Asian children, lack the will or mental horsepower to succeed without the paternal hand of the federal government to pull them along. This is wrong and it is ugly. Affirmative action has been shown over and over to benefit the offspring of families who are already successful and do nothing at all for the underprivileged other than give them another cross to bear.

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This decision marks the way for the end of racialist admission policies in higher education and the achievement of a society where successful black and Hispanics are assumed to have gained their positions by dint of ability and hard work and not because of a quota.

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