Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action
| Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action | |
|---|---|
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| Argued October 15, 2013 Decided April 22, 2014 |
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| Full case name | Schuette, Attorney General of Michigan v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and Immigration Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) et al. |
| Docket nos. | 12-682 |
| Citations | 572 U.S. ___ (more) |
| Argument | Oral argument |
| Holding | |
| A ban on affirmative action does not violate the Equal Protection Clause. United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed. | |
| Court membership | |
| Case opinions | |
| Plurality | Kennedy, joined by Roberts, Alito |
| Concurrence | Roberts |
| Concurrence | Scalia, joined by Thomas |
| Concurrence | Breyer |
| Dissent | Sotomayor, joined by Ginsburg |
| Kagan took no part in the consideration or decision of the case. | |
| Laws applied | |
| U.S. Const. amend. XIV | |
Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, 572 U.S. ___ (2014), was a case before the United States Supreme Court questioning whether a state violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by enshrining a ban on race- and sex-based discrimination on public university admissions in its state constitution.
The case was argued on October 15, 2013 on appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit which had ruled in 2012 that the Michigan ban, approved by the state's voters in 2006, was unconstitutional. The Sixth Circuit was reversed and the state ban upheld.
The case did not result in a majority opinion; Justice Kennedy wrote a plurality opinion. Justice Kagan took no part in the consideration or decision of the case, presumably because she had worked on the case during her time as United States Solicitor General.
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy issued an executive order establishing the concept of affirmative action and mandating that federally financed projects ensure that their hiring and employment practices are free of racial bias. With the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin was prohibited.
In the first case involving affirmative action in higher education, the Supreme Court ruled in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978) that the UC Davis medical school admissions program violated the Fourteenth Amendment with the institution of quotas for underrepresented minorities. It did not, however, eliminate race as a factor in university admissions, calling diversity a "compelling interest."
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