Justice Sotomayor's Stinging Dissent In Defense Of Affirmative Action

Justice Sotomayor says colleagues can't 'wish away' racial inequality. "Justice Sonia Sotomayor's fierce defense of the affirmative action efforts such as the ones that helped move her from a Bronx housing project to the upper echelons of American law found renewed voice Tuesday in an impassioned dissent that accused colleagues of trying to 'wish away' racial inequality -- and drew a tart response from Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. In her most personal moment in 4 1/2 years on the court, Sotomayor read part of her dissent from the bench to emphasize her disagreement....Sotomayor noted Roberts's famous statement in a 2007 opinion that 'the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.' Too simplistic, she said." Robert Barnes inThe Washington Post.

Primary source: The Supreme Court's ruling. The Washington Post.

Explainers:

5 takeaways from the affirmative-action ruling. Josh Gerstein in Politico.

The Supreme Court's ruling: An explainer. Ashby Jones in The Wall Street Journal.

Profile: Meet Jennifer Gratz, the woman who killed affirmative action -- twice. Maggie Severns in Politico.

Americans broadly support affirmative-action policies... "While the debate and the battles continue, a new Pew Research Center poll finds that Americans overwhelmingly support these programs. Americans say by roughly two-to-one (63% to 30%) that affirmative action programs designed to increase the number of black and minority students on college campuses is a 'good thing,' according to the survey conducted Feb. 27-Mar. 16. This was almost the same result Pew Research found in 2003. Behind those overall numbers is a racial and partisan divide." Bruce Drake in Pew Research Center.

...though it also depends how you ask the question. "Using the phrases 'special preferences' or 'preferential treatment' in a question tends to reduce support for affirmative action. Americans want life to be fair: They generally don't mind assisting groups that need help, but they don't like the idea of that help coming at the expense of others....Specifying groups that would benefit from affirmative action also tends to reduce support for the policies....A substantial minority -- perhaps a third or 40 percent -- seem to oppose affirmative action almost no matter how it's described. A similar portion of the population supports it, regardless of the description. In the middle are a group of people who think affirmative action makes sense in some limited circumstances." Allison Kopicki in The New York Times.

CASSIDY: Another good day for the conservative backlash. "It was left to Justice Sotomayor, in a long and passionate dissent, to point out some of the practical implications of the majority ruling....As the Supreme Court is currently constituted, Sotomayor's words, however eloquent, carry no weight. In the past ten months alone, the conservatives on the Court have gutted the Voting Rights Act, cast aside some of the few remaining limits on campaign donations, and sounded the death knell for affirmative action. Who knows, by the time they are finished, they might have figured out how to turn the calendar back to 1950, or even earlier." John Cassidy in The New Yorker.

BAZELON: Ruling definitely doesn't ensure racial diversity in universities. "For liberals as well as conservatives, there's an upside to that outcome, despite the expected denunciation by groups like the NAACP and the ACLU....In seven of the states that have banned it, leading and other public universities have maintained black and Latino enrollment and admitted more low-income students. As I explained in October, 'Some of the schools have taken income and wealth and neighborhood into account. Some have plans that admit the top 10 percent of high school graduates statewide. Three have banned legacy preferences.' Those are strategies for achieving racial diversity that also improve socioeconomic diversity, which at many selective schools is sorely lacking." Emily Bazelon in Slate.

KAHLENBERG: Affirmative action's on its deathbed. That might not be such a bad thing. "Today's disadvantages, though, are more closely associated with class than race. When measured by income, the academic achievement gap is now twice as large as the race gap. More broadly, socioeconomically disadvantaged students score, on average, 399 points lower on the SAT than wealthy students, while the difference between African-American students and white students of the same socioeconomic class is just 56 points. Affirmative action policies should be updated to reflect these new realities." Richard D. Kahlenberg in Politico Magazine.