Logo
  • Home
  • Ask
  • Teen Help Network
  • About
    • About Judge Tom
    • Books
    • FAQs
    • Press Room
  • Your Rights
    • Crime and Punishment
    • Student Rights at School
    • You and Your Body
    • You and the Internet
    • Juvenile Justice System
    • LGBT Youth Rights
    • More Categories
  • Blog
  • Get Help
    • Videos
    • A Teenager’s Guide to Juvenile Court
    • Books
    • Research & Resources
  • Newsletter Signup

 

Q&A

Know your rights! Youth justice and juvenile law answers.

Askthejudge.info features regular updates from the news, important decisions from the nation′s courts, and online discussions with Judge Tom. Find out everything you need to know about youth rights, juvenile law and juvenile justice. AsktheJudge – Empowering youth one question at a time.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this site is made available to the general public and is not intended to serve as legal advice.You should consult a trained legal professional in your area for questions you may have about the laws affecting juveniles or any legal interpretations.

Copyright, 2014
Logo
May 16, 2012
Judge Tom
Blog, Student Rights at School, You and Your Job
0

What does affirmative action mean?

PreviousNext

In an effort to compensate for past offenses against African Americans regarding slavery and racial discrimination, the United States coined the term “affirmative action” to help eliminate discrimination and create diversity in education, government and in business.  Affirmative action is intended to promote equal opportunity. President John F. Kennedy used the phrase in an executive order signed in March, 1961, a few years before the Civil Rights acts were passed by Congress in 1964 and 1965. The order required government contractors to “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed and that employees are treated during employment without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.”

You may be asking how does affirmative action apply to me as a teenager. For the most part, it may have an impact on your continuing education. As a high school senior at age 17, 18 or 19, you may be in the process of applying to a college or university.  Over the years these educational institutions have sought diversity in their student population. Quotas have been used as well as percentages based on race in accepting incoming students. These methods have been challenged and continue to be litigated in the courts. Three important cases that have reached the U.S. Supreme Court are described below. You can Google any of these cases for more information about each.

Martin Luther King, Jr., Washington, D.C. (Ron Cogswell, Flickr)

Regents of University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978)

Allan Bakke applied to medical school at the University of California at Davis. He was a white student, a Vietnam vet and finished in the top 3% of those who took the medical school admission test. He was rejected due to the school’s policy of setting aside 16% of its slots for minorities. He sued and ultimately the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the affirmative action policy in the interest of promoting diversity in higher education. However, the Court also banned quotas that set aside a fixed number of slots for minorities. The Court ordered that the University admit Bakke into the medical school.

Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 982 (2003)

Barbara Grutter was a white college graduate with a 3.8 grade point average. She applied to the University of Michigan Law School and was turned down. She sued the university over its affirmative action policy which considered race as a factor. The Supreme Court upheld the use of affirmative action in college admissions.

diversity

Photo by Oregon DOT

Fisher v. University of Texas: Affirmative action plans are still legal, but only as a last resort

High school senior, Abigail Fisher, applied to the University of Texas in 2008. She didn’t finish in the top ten percent of her class which would have guaranteed her a spot at the university under state law. Consequently, she was considered in a separate pool of applicants where race was a factor. Abigail sued in federal court claiming a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Her case has been accepted by the Supreme Court. In June, 2013, the Court returned the case to the lower court to review closer the university’s admissions policy.

In deciding the case, the Court held that affirmative action plans can be used and racial preferences considered in the admissions process, but only as a last resort. The school must show that “no workable race-neutral alternatives would produce the benefits of educational diversity.” In June, 2016, when the case returned to the Supreme Court, a 4-3 ruling upheld the use of racial preferences in admissions.

Note: Some states have enacted legislation prohibiting the use of race in public college admissions including Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Washington.

employmentracial justicerights at school
Share this
Judge Tom

The Author Judge Tom

Judge Tom is the founder and moderator of AsktheJudge.info. He is a retired juvenile judge and spent 23 years on the bench. He has written several books for lawyers and judges as well as teens and parents including 'Teen Cyberbullying Investigated' (Free Spirit Publishing) and 'Every Vote Matters: the Power of Your Voice, from Student Elections to the Supreme Court' (Free Spirit Publishing). In 2020, the American Bar Association published "Cyberbullying Law," the nation's first case-law book written for lawyers, judges and law students. When he's not answering teens' questions, Judge Tom volunteers with the American Red Cross and can be found hiking, traveling and reading.

Find great resources in our

Teen Help Network


Leave A Comment Cancel reply