Tuesday, June 24, 2003

My two cents on the University of Michigan case

There’s no point in trying to compete with Bashman or Reynolds or Volokh on the legal questions, but I’ll just say this: several of the Justices voiced the opinion that affirmative action programs should be “time-limited” or “sunsetted” after, say, 25 years. (Here’s the Opinion Journal’s take on Justice O’Connors’ pretzel logic). My questions would be 1.) why are racial preferences unconstitutional in 2028 and not now? and 2.) By what yardstick could the United States determine that the racial gap has narrowed sufficiently to eliminate racial preferences?

Antonin Scalia is right: this was a muddled ruling that only served to kick-the-can down the road and invite more lawsuits.

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