Regents of the University of California v. Bakke familiarizes students with the landmark Supreme Court case that addressed the issue of affirmative action. In 1973 and 1974, Allan Bakke, a white male, was denied admission to the medical school at the University of California in Davis, despite being well qualified. Bakke filed suit, claiming racial discrimination. In a closely divided 1978 decision, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of programs giving advantage to minorities, but denied quota systems in college admissions. They ruled the UC medical school had, by maintaining a 16-percent minority quota, discriminated against Bakke. Allan Bakke was later admitted to the school, and graduated in 1992. Here, Professor Tim McNeese, who is also a consulting historian for the History Channel's Risk Takers, History Makers series, explains affirmative action and the background behind this lawsuit, as well as the controversy caused by the Court's decision.
In 1973 and 1974, the University of California, Davis, denied admission to applicant Allan Bakke. He decided to challenge the state university's use of affirmative action, a program that allowed the school to consider racial background as a qualification for acceptance. Although the policy aimed to help disadvantaged groups gain access to competitive higher education institutions, Bakke and his attorneys claimed it often resulted in discrimination against other groups. Your students will explore the complexities of the debates over affirmative action, analyze the legal justifications from the legal system's highest authorities, and ultimately be able to craft their own understandings and arguments surrounding this policy.
Examines the law and politics surrounding the Bakee case; a case claiming reverse discrimnation, considered by many as the most important civil rights decision since the end of segregation.
An Introduction to Constitutional Law teaches the narrative of constitutional law as it has developed historically and provides the essential background to understand how this foundational body of law has come to be what it is today. This multimedia experience combines a book and video series to engage students more directly in the study of constitutional law. All students—even those unfamiliar with American history—will garner a firm understanding of how constitutional law has evolved. An eleven-hour online video library brings the Supreme Court’s most important decisions to life. Videos are enriched by photographs, maps, and audio from the Supreme Court. The book and videos are accessible for all levels: law school, college, high school, home school, and independent study. Students can read and watch these materials before class to prepare for lectures or study after class to fill in any gaps in their notes. And, come exam time, students can binge-watch the entire canon of constitutional law in about twelve hours.
In the process of balancing ideals of race and gender equality with competing notions of colorblindness and meritocracy, they even borrowed the language of the civil rights era to make far-reaching claims about equality, justice, and citizenship in their anti-affirmative action rhetoric. Deslippe traces this conflict through compelling case studies of real people and real jobs. He asks what the introduction of affirmative action meant to the careers and livelihoods of Seattle steelworkers, New York asbestos handlers, St. Louis firemen, Detroit policemen, City University of New York academics, and admissions councilors at the University of Washington Law School. Through their experiences, Deslippe examines the diverse reactions to affirmative action, concluding that workers had legitimate grievances against its hiring and promotion practices.
This book will consist of seven or more essays, critical in different ways of racial "diversity" preferences in American higher education. Unlike many more conventional books on the subject, which are essentially apologies for racial reverse discrimination, this volume forthrightly exposes the corrosive effects of identity politics on college and university life.
The debate over affirmative action has raged for over four decades, with little give on either side. Most agree that it began as noble effort to jump-start racial integration; many believe it devolved into a patently unfair system of quotas and concealment. Now, with the Supreme Court set to rule on a case that could sharply curtail the use of racial preferences in American universities, law professor Richard Sander and legal journalist Stuart Taylor offer a definitive account of what affirmative action has become, showing that while the objective is laudable, the effects have been anything but. Sander and Taylor have long admired affirmative action's original goals, but after many years of studying racial preferences, they have reached a controversial but undeniable conclusion: that preferences hurt underrepresented minorities far more than they help them. At the heart of affirmative action's failure is a simple phenomenon called mismatch. Using dramatic new data and numerous interviews with affected former students and university officials of color, the authors show how racial preferences often put students in competition with far better-prepared classmates, dooming many to fall so far behind that they can never catch up. Mismatch largely explains why, even though black applicants are more likely to enter college than whites with similar backgrounds, they are far less likely to finish; why there are so few black and Hispanic professionals with science and engineering degrees and doctorates; why black law graduates fail bar exams at four times the rate of whites; and why universities accept relatively affluent minorities over working class and poor people of all races. Sander and Taylor believe it is possible to achieve the goal of racial equality in higher education, but they argue that alternative policies -- such as full public disclosure of all preferential admission policies, a focused commitment to improving socioeconomic diversity on campuses, outreach to minority communities, and a renewed focus on K-12 schooling -- will go farther in achieving that goal than preferences, while also allowing applicants to make informed decisions. Bold, controversial, and deeply researched, Mismatch calls for a renewed examination of this most divisive of social programs -- and for reforms that will help realize the ultimate goal of racial equality.
