Back From The Future

One hates to admit that a portion of the news is completely opaque.  Try as I might, I simply could not understand from the media what had happened at the Supreme Court this past week regarding affirmative action in Michigan.  Probably because those people reporting perhaps didn’t understand it either!  What I understood, perhaps incorrectly, was that the majority of the Supreme Court believed that if the people voted in a law, or voted out an existing law, unconstitutional as that law is or was, it must stand.  That the people had spoken, and this took precedence. 

Consequently I located Justice Sotomayor’s minority rebuttal and read that.  This rebuttal was magnificent in its ordering of the history of cases in this country regarding the ways in which the white (or Anglo) majority in this country had tried its very, very best in the past to prevent minorities from having even the most basic of civil rights, from a good education up to and including voting.  Case after case, with the majority of these laws, ordinances and policies being declared unconstitutional under the 14^th and 15^th Amendments to the Bill of Rights progress was made at a snail’s pace to protect all of the citizens of these United States.  These two amendments read: 

14.  No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privilege or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws… 

15.  The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude… 

What the Supreme Court this week did was deprive minorities in Michigan due process of law.  This case involves this last chapter of discrimination:

 After a century of being shut out of Michi­gan’s institutions of higher education, racial minorities in Michigan had succeeded in persuading the elected board representatives to adopt admissions policies that took into account the benefits of racial diversity. The members of those boards are nominated by political parties and elected by the citizenry in statewide elections. After over a century of being shut out of Michi­gan’s institutions of higher education, racial minorities in Michigan had succeeded in persuading the elected board representatives to adopt admissions policies that took into account the benefits of racial diversity.”  Justice Sotomayor.

Justice Sotomayor goes on that what the Supreme Court did was to deny minorities due process.  She explains:

 “The effect of §26 is that a white graduate of a public Michigan university who wishes to pass his historical privilege on to his children may freely lobby the board of that university in favor of an expanded legacy admissions policy, whereas a black Michigander who was denied the opportunity to attend that very uni­versity cannot lobby the board in favor of a policy that might give his children a chance that he never had and that they might never have absent that policy”. 

Now a minority Michigander must change the Michigan Constitution in order to challenge the admission policy.  Race has become the defining entity that determines whether an admission policy is valid or not.  A white Michigander can lobby the Board of Regents for a change of policy.  A black, and presumably brown, Michigander must change the Michigan Constitution to change the policy.  This is a blatant denial of minorities’ right of due process.  Although this is a Michigan problem right now, it sloshes over into California’s UC admission policies as well, but this thing in Michigan, in my opinion, is much more blatant and cause for concern. 

Since we have four daughters, two granddaughters, and three great granddaughters, the Republican efforts to roll back all of the successes women have achieved over the past 40 years really rankles with me.  I have lived through all of the various cultural attitudes toward women that have been prevalent from rape to subtle denigration over these 80+ years, and I do not want to go back to those times myself, nor do I want our progeny to have to live through them.  Even in the past 15 years or so I have experienced subtle denigration over gender from overt comments to some men thinking they had the right to give me less than welcome hugs.  This will, in time, wear out as new generations come into being, but let’s project into the future a bit.  Although I hate speculation in the news, it is good to occasionally do it on issues because that is where our understanding of “what is afoot” comes from.

Let’s suppose the Michigan decision is allowed to stand and minorities are denied the right to question admission policies.  Other universities in other states can now go the same route.  If enough of them get away with it, then state propositions to deny LBGT people the right to lobby admission policies, and be required to change the state’s constitutions are a possibility. 

Or, hey, let’s go after the 19^th Amendment:

19.  The rights of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

You think this is farfetched?  I was denied the right to attend San Luis Obispo’s public college, California Polytechnic (Cal Poly) back in the late ‘40’s and early ‘50’s because I was female.  And don’t think this couldn’t happen again.  The attitude of we’ve got to keep those women from being educated is right under the surface.  They only introduce emotionalism into politics, and present a sexual diversion into the important decision making required of us white men.  Yuk!!!