The Chronicle of Higher Education
January 14, 2010
By Peter Schmidt
Having held in a landmark 2003 Supreme Court ruling that diverse college enrollments have proven educational benefits but that colleges should not need race-conscious admissions policies 25 years down the road, a retired associate justice — Sandra Day O'Connor — is now singing what some hear as a different tune.
In an essay written with Stewart J. Schwab, who had served as one of her Supreme Court clerks and is now dean of the Cornell Law School, Justice O'Connor argues that the majority opinion she wrote in the 2003 affirmative-action case should not be seen as imposing a deadline on the use of race-conscious policies or as relieving the need for more research showing such policies have educational benefits.
"When the time comes to reassess the constitutionality of considering race in higher-education admissions," the essay says, "we will need social scientists to clearly demonstrate the educational benefits of diverse student bodies, and to better understand the links between role models in one generation and aspirations and achievements of succeeding generations."
The essay, contained in the new book The Next 25 Years: Affirmative Action in Higher Education in the United States and South Africa, has struck a raw nerve among critics of affirmative action who were frustrated by the pivotal role Justice O'Connor played in preserving race-conscious admissions policies in the Supreme Court's 2003 Grutter v. Bollinger decision, involving the University of Michigan Law School. Seen as the court's swing vote on the affirmative-action issue, she ended up siding with its liberal wing in a 5-to-4 ruling holding that race-conscious admissions policies are constitutional because they serve the compelling state interest of promoting diversity and its associated educational benefits.
Full Story: http://chronicle.com/article/Sandra-Day-OConnor-Revisits/63523/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en (Subscription may be required)
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