Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action - Reason Foundation

16C. The Sixth Circuit’s Notion That Questionsof Preferential Treatment for RacialMinorities Must Be Left At a LowLevel of Government Is Contrary toLaw and the Political Theory of the Nation’sFounders.The Sixth Circuit’s decision takes the novel positionthat since admissions policy-making is generallyentrusted to individual state colleges anduniversities, the discretion to grant Grutter-stylepreferential treatment must also reside withthem—and not with the state constitution. Ofcourse, MCRI also bans preferential treatment inpublic contracting and public employment. Sincemunicipalities generally have the authority togrant municipal contracts and sanitation districtsgenerally hire staff, presumably the same conclu-No fair-minded CCRI opponent argues that it was motivatedprimarily or even substantially by malice. While no statewideelection has ever been conducted anywhere in which no voterwas motivated by malice, those who supported CCRI overwhelminglydid so conscientiously. Presidential candidateRobert Dole, Governor Pete Wilson, and a host of other officeholdersendorsed it, as did newspapers like the San Diego UnionTribune, the Orange County Register, UCSD’s DailyGuardian, and San Diego State University’s Daily Aztec. It isdifficult to imagine that they were all simply spewing hatred.Indeed, CCRI could not have passed without millions of votesfrom women and minorities—the very persons that its opponentsargued would be victimized by it. Also among thenewspapers that endorsed CCRI was UC-Berkeley’s DailyCalifornian—although few Berkeley students heard about it.In the early hours of the morning on Election Day, CCRI opponentscollected the papers from the various campus locationswhere they are made available for pick up and threwthem out. Daily Cal Stolen Off Racks–Prop. 209 Cited, SanFrancisco Chronicle at B2 (Nov. 6, 1996).