Grutter v. Bollinger

Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003), was a landmark case in which the United States Supreme Court upheld the affirmative action admissions policy of the University of Michigan Law School. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, writing for the majority in a 5-4 decision and joined by Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, ruled that the University of Michigan Law School had a compelling interest in promoting class diversity. The court held that a race-conscious admissions process that may favor "underrepresented minority groups," but that also took into account many other factors evaluated on an individual basis for every applicant, did not amount to a quota system that would have been unconstitutional under Regents of the University of California v. Bakke.

Justices Ginsburg and Breyer concurred in judgment, but stated that they did not subscribe to the Court's belief that the affirmative measures in question would be unnecessary in 25 years.

Chief Justice Rehnquist, joined by Justices Kennedy, Scalia, and Thomas, dissented, arguing that the University's "plus" system was, in fact, a thinly veiled and unconstitutional quota system. Chief Justice Rehnquist cited the fact that the percentage of African American applicants closely mirrored the percentage of African American applicants that were accepted.

Supreme court

A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of many legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, instance court, judgment court, apex court, and highest court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of a supreme court are not subject to further review by any other court. Supreme courts typically function primarily as appellate courts, hearing appeals from decisions of lower trial courts, or from intermediate-level appellate courts.

However, not all highest courts are named as such. Civil law states do not tend to have singular highest courts. Additionally, the highest court in some jurisdictions is not named the "Supreme Court", for example, the High Court of Australia; this is because decisions by the High Court could formerly be appealed to the Privy Council. On the other hand, in some places the court named the "Supreme Court" is not in fact the highest court; examples include the New York Supreme Court, the Supreme Courts of several Canadian provinces/territories and the former Supreme Court of Judicature of England and Wales, which are all superseded by higher Courts of Appeal.

Affirmative action

Affirmative action (known as employment equity in Canada, reservation in India and Nepal, and positive discrimination in the UK) is the policy of favoring members of a disadvantaged group who suffer from discrimination within a culture. Often, these people are disadvantaged for historical reasons, such as oppression or slavery. Historically and internationally, support for affirmative action has sought to achieve goals such as bridging inequalities in employment and pay, increasing access to education, promoting diversity, and redressing apparent past wrongs, harms, or hindrances. The nature of affirmative action policies varies from region to region. Some countries, such as India, use a quota system, whereby a certain percentage of jobs or school vacancies must be reserved for members of a certain group. In some other regions, specific quotas do not exist; instead, members of minorities are given preference in selection processes.

The term "affirmative action" was first used in the United States in "Executive Order No.10925", signed by President John F. Kennedy on 6 March 1961, which included a provision that government contractors "take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin." In 1967, gender was added to the anti-discrimination list. In 1989, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination stipulated (in Article 2.2) that affirmative action programs may be required of countries that ratified the convention, in order to rectify systematic discrimination. It also states that such programs "shall in no case entail as a consequence the maintenance of unequal or separate rights for different racial groups after the objectives for which they were taken have been achieved."