Judge Sonia Sotomayor's 58-PAGE dissent to US Supreme Court Michigan Affirmative Action decision

Excerpts of Judge Sotomayor 58-PAGE dissent (link to full dissent below):

"A recent study confirms that §26 has decreased minority degree attainment in Michigan. The University of Michigan’s graduating class of 2012, the first admitted after §26 took effect, is quite different from previous classes. The proportion of black students among those attaining bachelor’s degrees was 4.4 percent, the lowest since 1991; the proportion of black students among those attaining master’s degrees was 5.1 percent, the lowest since 1989; the proportion of black students among those attaining doctoral degrees was 3.9 percent, the lowest since 1993; and the proportion of black students among those attaining professional school degrees was 3.5 percent, the lowest since the mid-1970’s.

The President and Chancellors of the University of California (which has 10 campuses, not 17) inform us that“ [t]he abandonment of race-conscious admissions policies resulted in an immediate and precipitous decline in the rates at which underrepresented-minority students applied to, were admitted to, and enrolled at” the University.

At the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), for example, admission rates for underrepresented minorities plummeted from 52.4 percent in 1995 (before California’s ban took effect) to 24 percent in 1998.

As a result, the percentage of underrepresented minorities fell by more than half: from 30.1 percent of the entering class in 1995 to 14.3 percent
in 1998.

The admissions rate for underrepresented minorities at UCLA reached a new low of 13.6 percent in 2012.

The elimination of race-sensitive admissions policies in California has been especially harmful to black students.

In 2006, for example, there were fewer than 100 black students in UCLA’s incoming class of roughly 5,000, the
lowest number since at least 1973.

The University of California also saw declines in minor ity representation at its graduate programs and profes sional schools. In 2005, underrepresented minorities made up 17 percent of the university’s new medical students, which is actually a lower rate than the 17.4 percent reported in 1975, three years before Bakke.

The numbers at the law schools are even more alarming. In 2005, underrepresented minorities made up 12 percent of entering law students, well below the 20.1 percent in 1975.

As in Michigan, the declines in minority representation at the University of California have come even as the minority population in California has increased. At UCLA, for example, the proportion of Hispanic freshmen among those enrolled declined from 23 percent in 1995 to
17 percent in 2011, even though the proportion of Hispanic college-aged persons in California increased from 41 per cent to 49 percent during that same period.

And the proportion of Black freshmen among those enrolled at UCLA declined from 8 percent in 1995 to 3 percent in 2011, even though the proportion of Black College-aged persons in California increased from 8 percent to 9 percent during that same period.

While the minority admissions rates at UCLA and Berkeley have decreased, the number of minorities en rolled at colleges across the county has increased. See Phillips, Colleges Straining to Restore Diversity: Bans on Race-Conscious Admissions Upend Racial Makeup at
California Schools, Wall Street Journal, Mar. 7, 2014,p.A3........."
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Link to Read Justice Sotomayor's Dissent, page 51 - 108: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-682_j4ek.pdf
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"......Colleges and Universities must be free to prioritize the goal of diversity. They must be free to immerse their students in a multiracial environment that fosters frequent and meaningful interactions with students of other races, and thereby pushes such students to transcend any assumptions they may hold on the basis of skin color.Without race-sensitive admissions policies, this might well be impossible. The statistics I have described make that fact glaringly obvious. We should not turn a blind eye to something we cannot help but see.

To be clear, I do not mean to suggest that the virtues of adopting race-sensitive admissions policies should inform the legal question before the Court today regarding the constitutionality of §26.

But I cannot ignore the unfortunate outcome of today’s decision: Short of amending the State Constitution, a Herculean task, racial minorities in Michigan are deprived of even an opportunity to convince Michigan’s public Colleges and Universities to consider race in their admissions plans when other attempts to achieve racial diversity have proved unworkable, and those institutions are unnecessarily hobbled in their pursuit of a diverse student body.

The Constitution does not protect racial minorities from political defeat. But neither does it give the majority free rein to erect selective barriers against racial minorities.

The political-process doctrine polices the channels of change to ensure that the majority, when it wins, does so without rigging the rules of the game to ensure its success.

Today, the Court discards that doctrine without good reason.

In doing so, it permits the decision of a majority of the voters in Michigan to strip Michigan’s elected university boards of their authority to make decisions with respect to constitutionally permissible race-sensitive admissions policies, while preserving the boards’ plenary authority to make all other educational decisions. “In a most direct sense, this implicates the judiciary’s special role in safe-guarding the interests of those groups that are relegated to such a position of political powerlessness as to command extraordinary protection from the majoritarian political process.”

The Court abdicates that role,permitting the majority to use its numerical advantage to change the rules mid-contest and forever stack the deck against racial minorities in Michigan. The result is that Michigan’s public Colleges and Universities are less equipped to do their part in ensuring that students of all races are “better prepare[d] . . . for an increasingly diverse workforce and society”

Today’s decision eviscerates an important strand of our equal protection jurisprudence. For members of historically marginalized groups, which rely on the federal courts to protect their constitutional rights, the decision can hardly bolster hope for a vision of democracy that preserves for all the right to participate meaningfully and equally in self-government.

I respectfully dissent."
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Link to Read Justice Sotomayor's Dissent, page 51 - 108: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-682_j4ek.pdf
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