Supremes Upholds Affirmative Action Ban

By Keen News Service

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Tuesday a voter-approved ban in Michigan against considering race when determining who should be admitted to public universities. Lambda Legal joined in a friend-of-the-court brief in Schuette v. Coalition to Defeat Affirmative Action, arguing that the ban should be struck. But Jon Davidson, legal director for Lambda, and others said they don't believe the court's willingness to uphold a ban on affirmative action will necessarily mean it will be willing to uphold a ban on same-sex marriage. "The Court," said Davidson, "did not rule that voter-approved constitutional amendments are immune from attack or entitled to more deference than laws passed by legislatures. Instead, a majority of the judges simply (and quite troublingly) do not recognize bans on affirmative action as comparable to invidious discrimination against a minority group."