As the federal entity in charge of enforcing civil rights law, the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) plays a critical role in addressing the vast inequities that exist in U.S. education. Through an analysis of the policy guidance OCR issued for a number of areas during the Obama administration, we illustrate the agency's…

The racial diversification of America's higher education system has been at the forefront of legal argument for the last seventy-five years. Ground-breaking decisions birthed the inclusion of affirmative action policies in higher education after the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In recent years, both the utility and constitutionality…

Good research does not mean good policy, but policy or legal conclusions that rely on false assumptions are certain to be bad. When the rights of U.S. students of color are at stake, the Supreme Courts need the best research findings the country can offer. The U.S. Constitution contains sweeping and undefined terms. Reaching a conclusion about the…

The United States Department of Education (ED) and the United States Department of Justice issued this guidance to explain how, consistent with existing law, postsecondary institutions can voluntarily consider race to further the compelling interest of achieving diversity. It replaces the August 28, 2008 letter issued by ED's Office for Civil…

Summarizes the historical evolution of both the legal and moral arguments surrounding affirmative action in higher education. Discusses black higher education institutions and black scholars, desegregation and the Civil Rights Movement, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, admissions quotas, and the connection between law and educational policy. (MKA)

This paper provides an analysis by three black leaders of how the law, the nation, and the church agencies have responded to liberation issues in recent years. Victor M. Goode analyzes the role and status of blacks under the law from the Scott v. Sandford decision in 1857 through the dismantling of the formal structures of slavery and the modern…

Law's growing involvement with the structure and policies of all postsecondary institutions is addressed in this comprehensive sourcebook on law for administrators and their legal counsel. Detailed discussions of the Bakke and the Horowitz cases are offered along with clear summaries of the laws, regulations, and court decisions pertaining to…

This legal document examines whether the University of Michigan Law School's use of racial preferences in student admissions violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. 2000d et. seq.), or 42 U.S.C. 1981. This brief filed by the federal government in support of the…

The Bakke decision, the President's civil rights reorganization, and the changes in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and at state and local civil rights agencies demand a greater professionalism in civil rights enforcement nationally. (Author/WI)

The recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions "Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College" (2023) and "Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina et al." (2023), hereafter collectively referred to as "SFFA v. Harvard," have garnered attention, especially among…

This paper introduces a collection of papers that examines the impact of affirmative action on college admission and the importance of school desegregation. The book addresses whether or not the educational value of diversity is sufficiently compelling to justify the consideration of race when making college admission decisions. This introduction…

The Supreme Court's ruling in the Bakke case, which found that strict numerical quotas were illegal in admissions programs, is analyzed in this article in terms of its applications to women's rights. It is pointed out that although the ruling, which was made on a statutory rather than a constitutional basis, conceded that race could be considered…

In these remarks, the Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, discusses the Department's policy to enforce Federal equal employment opportunity guarantees without supporting quotas and other numerical formulae that provide preferential treatment. The discussion counters the charge that this policy is…

In an expansion of his paper presented at the American Bar Association's 1978 annual meeting, Professor Goetz reviews the 1977 Supreme Court labor law decisions, focusing on employment discrimination cases and the legality of affirmative action programs in the decision in Board of Regents of the University of California v Bakke. (MF)

This legal document asserts that the judgment of the Court of Appeals upholding the constitutionality of the University of Michigan Law School's race-conscious admissions policy should be affirmed. It argues that research evidence in the record supports the compelling interest in promoting educational diversity (the Gurin Report supports the…