Sunday 30 June 2013

A Busy Week at the Supreme Court (Part I): Fisher v. UT



In the first of a series of blog posts, Dr. Emma Long takes a look at the recent opinions handed down by the Supreme Court:

The US Supreme Court has had a busy week.  By itself this is not unusual: the last week or so of the Court’s term often sees a flurry of opinions handed down.  And it’s also not unusual that some of the most controversial cases appear at this time of year (remember the Court’s opinion on Obamacare last year?).  Issues which are legally or politically controversial may divide the Justices and require time for issues to be worked out and the opinions written.  What makes this week particularly unusual is that the Court has handed down opinions in four controversial cases and done so in three days: affirmative action, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and same-sex marriage have all been addressed by the Court this week.  But what has the Court said, and why is it important?  In the following posts I want to look at each of the four cases, what the controversy involved, what the Court said, and what this tells us about the Supreme Court and the law on these issues in the US.

Fisher v. University of Texas

On Monday (June 24), the Court handed down the first of these cases.  Fisher v. University of Texas involved universities’ ability to take race into account in admissions decisions.  Although focussed on this narrow issue, the case was widely perceived to have broader implications for affirmative action policies (known in the UK as positive discrimination).

The Case
Abigail Fisher sued the University of Texas for racial discrimination.  She did not gain a place at UT despite, she argued, having higher grades than some students from minority backgrounds.  The UT system thus discriminated against her, Fisher argued, because she is white.  This argument is not new: a significant number of challenges to affirmative action programmes have taken a similar path.  In response, the University argued that their policy was not exclusively based on race and that race was only one of a series of factors considered to ensure a diverse student population.  This goal, they pointed out, had been accepted by the Court in previous cases challenging the role of race in university admissions policies.

Abigail Fisher at the Supreme Court last October

The Court
The Court, in a relatively brief opinion, ducked the issue.  The Court has required laws which discriminate against discreet minorities to meet a standard of review known as “strict scrutiny”, meaning the law must be narrowly tailored to meet its objectives and have a compelling reason for existence.  In this case, the seven Justice majority argued, the lower court did not apply the correct standard of review. The lower court, according majority, had not sufficiently considered the operation of the UT policy or asked whether the same results could be achieved by race neutral policies.  As a result, the Supreme Court returned the case to the lower court for reconsideration without deciding the question of whether the UT system of student admissions discriminated against Abigail Fisher.

The Significance
Perhaps most interesting for Court watchers is the fact that the Court really did very little in this case.  Given that the case was argued back at the start of the Court’s term in October, there had been a sense that something major was brewing.  The general consensus among commentators seems to be that divisions over the key issues among the Justices led to the crafting of a compromise opinion that upholds previous rulings but does little else.  The agreement between the Justices on the Court’s conservative and liberal wings, who would not normally be expected to agree on affirmative action, provides support for such an interpretation.  As does the fact that no side gains or loses (yet) as a result of the ruling: race conscious admissions programmes may remain if they can meet the standards of strict scrutiny, effectively leaving the law where it was.  Given the time, effort, and cost involved in taking a case to the Supreme Court, it is rare that the Justices accept cases simply to decide to leave things where they were.  History tells us it is often in cases resolved this way that the Justices have agreed not to decide, but to pass the case back to the lower courts for further consideration.

For many though, the result has come as something as a relief: there was a widespread fear that the Court might use Fisher to strike down affirmative action programmes permanently.  The decision, at least on the surface and for now, permits such programmes to continue.  But the standard of strict scrutiny is tough to meet, and critics of the decision argue that this will simply lead to the demise of affirmative action anyway.  The University of Texas, meanwhile, seems confident that its policies can meet strict scrutiny review. 

One thing is clear however; the lower courts are likely to be litigating this issue for some time to come as a result of Fisher.  However, supporters of affirmative action are facing another battle in the shape of Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action which the Court has agreed to hear in its next term starting in October.  This involves a challenge to an amendment to the Michigan Constitution, approved by voters, that bans affirmative action in the state.  How the Court addresses that case may have consequences far broader than those in Fisher.

Thursday 27 June 2013

The Year Abroad Photo Competition 2013

  
Do you have a favourite photo from your time abroad?

Calling all soon-to-be final year AMS students. Do you have a picture that you think best encapsulates your experiences overseas? Then submit a picture to the AMS Year Abroad Photo Competition!

There are prizes for the top three photos submitted to this year’s competition (it’s book vouchers rather than cash but think of it as a chance to use your cash for something else!):

First prize: £75
Second prize: £50
Third prize: £25

Winners will be announced at an AMS party early in the Autumn Term.  The prize winning pictures, along with a selection of others, will be displayed in the AMS corridor for the coming year.  All submissions will be posted on the Year Abroad page of the website (unless you request otherwise).

Any AMS student who spent the year, or part of the year, abroad in 2012/13 is eligible to submit to the competition.  A maximum of two photos per person, please!  Please send copies, along with a title (and, if you wish, a short explanation of the picture) to Emma Long at emma.long@uea.ac.uk on or before Sunday September 8, 2013.

Update: AMS Postgraduate Review Symposium



A few weeks ago, the School of American Studies held its Annual Postgraduate Review Symposium. Organised by David McCarthy and Coco d'Hont, the event is designed to showcase postgraduate research within the School. Papers covered a range of topics, from the novels of Bret Easton Ellis to the development of street corner sneaker culture in the US. You can find the titles and the abstracts of all the papers that were presented HERE.

Monday 3 June 2013

The 4th Annual Postgraduate Review Symposium



Next Thursday (13th June) will see the 4th Annual Postgraduate Review Symposium. Taking place on campus, this one-day even will showcase the current research projects of PhD and Masters by Research students in the School of American Studies. As testament to the broad range of subject areas being considered by the postgraduate research community, this year’s symposium includes papers on topics such as American sneaker culture, conspiracy theory, female infertility, celebrity autobiography, Eleanor Roosevelt, chicano fiction, plaçage and the radical changes in racial demographics in the U.S. primary education system.  The inaugural keynote lecture will be given by Dr Francisco Costa to mark the recent successful defence of his PhD thesis on representations of queer identities on the American stage from the 1950s to the 1990s. It promises to be a day full of thought-provoking debate and a great way of marking the School of American Studies’ continued contribution to UEA’s status as a centre for interdisciplinary research.