Explain how affirmative action programs permit racial classifications.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The ideal answer should include:
1. Affirmative action refers to programs that favor historically disadvantaged groups in admissions, hiring, and promotion decisions.
2. These programs permit racial classifications.
3. An affirmative action program in schools allows admissions officers to take race and ethnicity into account in awarding places in the entering class.
4. An affirmative action program in employment usually requires employers to make efforts to match the racial and gender numbers in their workforce with the pool of qualified workers in their areas.
5. In 1978, in University of California Regents v. Bakke, the Supreme Court upheld the principle of affirmative action, holding that it was a "state interest" to provide for diversity among medical students at the University of California. At the same time, the Court held that the use of numerical quotas for minorities was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause.
6. Recent supreme courts have grown more skeptical of affirmative action programs. While not declaring all affirmative action programs unconstitutional, courts have made it clear that there has to be a "compelling interest" to relieve a specific case of discrimination and that the remedy has to be "narrowly tailored."