| NYU School of Law and our Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law invite you to the 25th annual Derrick Bell Lecture on Race in American Society. Jasmine Gonzales Rose, Professor of Law at Boston University School of Law and Associate Director for Policy at the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research, will virtually present, “Race, Evidence, and Police Violence: Seeking 2020 Vision” on Thursday, November 12, 2020 at 6:00 p.m. Register here. |
Justice Sotomayor’s first oral argument as a sitting Supreme Court Justice is this morning. Surely, people will be watching to see how well she holds her own amongst the Scalias, Robertses, and Ginsburgs of the Court.
But the real question we propose today may not be answered for years — will the presence of a second person of color on the bench alter the Court in some significant fashion? We think it will.
Consider that the only person of color on the Court is Justice Thomas. While we’re not here to insult him, even he must acknowledge that his views on race deviate in significant ways from the good majority of American people of color. In other words, the Supreme Court’s white Justices have not had anyone in their midst who speaks from the point of view of most people of color.
Justice Scalia and others have said that Thurgood Marshall’s views on race informed the remainder of the Court, even if he spent his final years on the bench largely in dissent. It has been since the early 1990s since anyone has taken up the mantle of Justice Marshall to inform the Court’s judgment on race. We expect Justice Sotomayor, in some singificant if subtle ways, to do this. One can only imagine Justice Sotomayor’s take on the Voting Rights Act case from last Term in conference, when the only other person of color in the room was advocating for its complete evisceration.
The Roberts Court seems to be concerned about the change in membership on the Court more than usual, if the C-SPAN interviews are any indication. For the first time in almost two decades, there may be a Justice who will speak truth to power in the race context. These are exciting times.
Paul Spruhan, a clerk for the Navajo Nation Supreme Court, has posted “Indian as Race/Indian as Political Status: Implementation of the Half-Blood Requirement under the Indian Reorganization Act, 1934-1945” on SSRN. This paper was published in the Rutgers Race and the Law Review.
Here’s the abstract:
As the news about the 2007-2008 academic year comes out, we will be following the impact of Prop. 2 on minority students and communities in Michigan, with an emphasis on American Indian students.
Details from the Detroit News: “A record number of new freshmen flocked to Michigan public universities this fall, but some scholarship opportunities for the 40,674 students have dried up in light of Proposal 2.
“The constitutional amendment passed by voters last November not only banned preferences based on race and gender in public university admissions, but also shut down financial aid programs geared toward those targeted groups.
“Scholarships for women in engineering, single mothers, Hispanic scholars and high-achieving black students are among the programs that have been eliminated or altered at some of the state’s 15 public universities. In general, university leaders said they didn’t take away scholarships they promised students before Proposal 2 took effect Dec. 23, but the challenge has been how to help incoming classes without violating the law.”
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“The Alumni Association of the University of Michigan decided this fall to establish race- and gender-based scholarships after assurances from lawyers that doing so wouldn’t violate the law, leaders said.
“The board set aside $650,000 in seed money and anticipates awarding the first scholarships for incoming students in 2008.
“We wanted to be able to make it possible for alumni and others who want to provide support to do so,” said alumni association president Steve Grafton. “They can’t do that with the university and we can provide that opportunity for them.
“And we are really interested in helping to maintain and build the diversity at the university. This is a recruiting tool that will help the university recruit the very brightest students of color, women in engineering and men in nursing,” he said.
“Much of the debate over Proposal 2 has focused on the University of Michigan, the only state university that admittedly used affirmative action in undergraduate admissions. But the impact of the new constitutional amendment can be felt around the state, as scholarships for students based, in part, on race, gender or ethnicity were not uncommon.
“Universities initiated reviews of all of their scholarship programs. Central Michigan University found four scholarships that involved preferences. CMU didn’t change two slated for Native Americans because they believe those scholarships are based on sovereignty status, not on race.“
From Nick Reo–
Here are a couple of resources I thought you would appreciate that I became aware of at a recent conference. The resources come from two keynote speakers, scholars we should all be aware of.
Donna Nelson (http://cheminfo.ou.edu/~djn/djn.html) is an American Indian Chemistry Professor at the University of Oklahoma who has surveyed gender and racial composition of faculties at the top 50 U.S. research institutions. She presented the results of this study and has made the final report and their data available on her website.
National Analysis on Science & Engineering Faculties at Research Institutions- Final Report
http://cheminfo.ou.edu/~djn/diversity/briefings/Diversity%20Report%20Final.pdf
Summary Tables and Information from the study:
http://cheminfo.ou.edu/~djn/diversity/top50.html
Dorceta Taylor, Environmental Justice scholar from the University of Michigan, recently completed a related study that focuses on environmental and natural resource departments. Her results are reported in a recent issue of BioScience (February 2007- Vol. 57 No. 2). Also, see the Minority Environmental Leadership Development Institute website for some outstanding resources.
The Michigan Journal of Race & Law is hosting a symposium on affirmative action in Michigan after Prop. 2.
The symposium announcement is here.
For materials on Prop. 2 and its potential impact on American Indian students, please go here and here. For a pdf copy of the Michigan Civil Rights Commission report on Prop. 2, go here. Attachment no. 4 of the report concerns the impact of Prop. 2 on American Indian tuition waiver and is here.
From the symposium announcement….
The diversity of perspectives that is cherished and celebrated by the Michigan Journal of Race & Law and the University of Michigan community is threatened with the passage of ballot initiatives like Michigan’s Proposal 2, which bans the use of race and gender in school admissions. These issues are both timely and critically important in a society that is becoming increasingly segregated by race and ethnicity, both residentially and socially. With the recent passing of Proposal 2 as well as the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling regarding the use of race in public schools, we believe it is crucial to maintain an open and positive dialogue regarding race and education. To that end, our Symposium endeavors to address the variety of policy and legal questions arising out of the anti-affirmative action movement. Our Symposium will explore a broad range of issues including: the current effects of Proposition 209 in California and the potential effects of Proposal 2 on public university education and leadership within the state of Michigan, potential legal alternatives to affirmative action, and existing and emerging efforts to remedy K-12 educational disparities. Most notably, we present this symposium with the hope of preserving the University of Michigan’s longstanding commitment to diversity and as an answer to University of Michigan President Coleman’s request to “Show others what a U-M education looks like”.
Turtle Talk 
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