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…

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits federally funded programs, activities, and institutions from discriminating based on race, color, or national origin. In its current form, Title VI remains largely unchanged since its adoption. Unlike the Civil Rights Act's better known and more heavily litigated provisions, Title VI is concerned…

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…

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…

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…

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)

The present controversy, both legal and political, around the Bakke case indicates that we may be witnessing the advent, the rise and the fall of affirmative action as law and policy, all within the span of the last 15 years. (Author)

The use of strict scrutiny in compliance with antidiscrimination legislation, as in the Bakke case, represents a shift in constitutional law clearly related to social and political trends in the United States in the 1970's. Available from Wharton School, Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19174. (MSE)

This chapter reviews the legal standards governing affirmative action in higher education, examining the diversity rationale and contrasting the cases of Hopwood v. Texas and Wittmer v. Peters, which were decided in 1996. It discusses: the legal standard governing affirmative action in higher education; the remedial interest in overcoming the…