Author: Amy Elizabeth SemetPublisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 354
Book Description
Political Science, the Supreme Court, and Affirmative Action
Author: Amy Elizabeth SemetAffirmative Action, the Supreme Court, and Political Power in the Old Confederacy
Author: Ronnie Bernard TuckerPublisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 9780761815471
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 316
Book Description
Affirmative Action, The Supreme Court, and Political Power in the Old Confederacy
Legacy and Legitimacy
Author: Rosalee A. ClawsonPublisher: Temple University Press
ISBN: 1592139035
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 233
Book Description
Thoroughly grounded in the latest scholarly literature, theoretical sources, and experimental results, Legacy and Legitimacy substantially advances understanding of Black Americans’ attitudes toward the Supreme Court, the Court’s ability to influence Blacks’ opinions about the legitimacy of public institutions and policies, and the role of media in shaping Blacks’ judgments. Drawing on legitimacy theory—which explains the acceptance of or tolerance for controversial policies—the authors begin by reexamining the significance of “diffuse support” in establishing legitimacy. They provide a useful overview of the literature on legitimacy and a concise history of the special relationship between Blacks and the Court. They investigate the influences of group attitudes and media “framing.” And they employ data from large-scale surveys to show that Blacks with greater levels of diffuse support for the Court are more likely to adopt positions consistent with Court rulings. With its broad scope and inclusion of new experimental findings, Legacy and Legitimacy will interest students and scholars of judicial politics, racial politics, media and politics, black studies and public opinion.
The Supreme Court and American Political Development
Author: Ronald KahnPublisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700614397
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 526
Book Description
This innovative volume explores the evolution of constitutional doctrine as elaborated by the Supreme Court. Moving beyond the traditional "law versus politics" perspective, the authors draw extensively on recent studies in American Political Development (APD) to present a much more complex and sophisticated view of the Court as both a legal and political entity. The contributors--including Pam Brandwein, Howard Gillman, Mark Graber, Ronald Kahn, Tom Keck, Ken Kersch, Wayne Moore, Carol Nackenoff, Julie Novkov, and Mark Tushnet--share an appreciation that the process of constitutional development involves a complex interplay between factors internal and external to the Court. They underscore the developmental nature of the Court, revealing how its decision-making and legal authority evolve in response to a variety of influences: not only laws and legal precedents, but also social and political movements, election returns and regime changes, advocacy group litigation, and the interpretive community of scholars, journalists, and lawyers. Initial chapters reexamine standard approaches to the question of causation in judicial decision-making and the relationship between the Court and the ambient political order. Next, a selection of historical case studies exemplifies how the Court constructs its own authority as it defines individual rights and the powers of government. They show how interpretations of the Reconstruction amendments inform our understanding of racial discrimination, explain the undermining of affirmative action after Bakke, and consider why Roe v. Wade has yet to be overturned. They also tell how the Court has collaborated with political coalitions to produce the New Deal, Great Society, and Reagan Revolution, and why Native Americans have different citizenship rights than other Americans. These contributions encourage further debate about the nature and processes of constitutional change and invite APD scholars to think about law and the Court in more sophisticated ways.
The Role Of The Supreme Court In American Politics
Author: Richard PacellePublisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429975511
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 253
Book Description
When the Supreme Court's effectively decided the presidential election of 2000, it decision illustrated a classic question in American politics: what is the appropriate role for the Supreme Court? The dilemma is between judicial activism, the Court's willingness to make significant changes in public policy, and judicial restraint, the Court's willingness to confine the use and extent of its power. While the Framers of the Constitution felt that the judiciary would be the "least dangerous branch" of government, many have come to the conclusion that courts govern America, a notion at odds with democratic government.Richard Pacelle traces the historical ebb and flow of the Court's role in the critical issues of American politics: slavery, free speech, religion, abortion, and affirmative action. Pacelle examines the arguments for judicial restraint, including that unelected judges making policy runs against democratic principles, and the arguments for judicial activism, including the important role the court has played as a protector of minority rights. Pacelle suggests that there needs to be a balance between judicial activism and restraint in light of the constraints on the institution and its power. Stimulating and sure to generate discussion, The Supreme Court in American Politics is a concise supplemental text for American Government and Judicial Politics course.
Equality and Transparency
Author: D. SabbaghPublisher: Springer
ISBN: 023060739X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 263
Book Description
Can affirmative action policies be convincingly justified? And how have they been legitimized over time? In a pluridisciplinary perspective at the intersection of political theory and the sociology of law, Daniel Sabbagh criticizes the two prevailing justifications put forward in favor of affirmative action: the corrective justice argument and the diversity argument.He defends the policy instead as an instrument designed to bring about the deracialization of American society. In this respect, however, affirmative action requires a measure of dissimulation in order to succeed.Equality and Transparency explains why this is so and provides a new interpretation of the strategic component in the Supreme Court's case law while identifying some of its most remarkable side effects.
Race, Class, and Affirmative Action
Author: Sigal AlonPublisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610448545
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 346
Book Description
No issue in American higher education is more contentious than that of race-based affirmative action. In light of the ongoing debate around the topic and recent Supreme Court rulings, affirmative action policy may be facing further changes. As an alternative to race-based affirmative action, some analysts suggest affirmative action policies based on class. In Race, Class, and Affirmative Action, sociologist Sigal Alon studies the race-based affirmative action policies in the United States. and the class-based affirmative action policies in Israel. Alon evaluates how these different policies foster campus diversity and socioeconomic mobility by comparing the Israeli policy with a simulated model of race-based affirmative action and the U.S. policy with a simulated model of class-based affirmative action. Alon finds that affirmative action at elite institutions in both countries is a key vehicle of mobility for disenfranchised students, whether they are racial and ethnic minorities or socioeconomically disadvantaged. Affirmative action improves their academic success and graduation rates and leads to better labor market outcomes. The beneficiaries of affirmative action in both countries thrive at elite colleges and in selective fields of study. As Alon demonstrates, they would not be better off attending less selective colleges instead. Alon finds that Israel’s class-based affirmative action programs have provided much-needed entry slots at the elite universities to students from the geographic periphery, from high-poverty high schools, and from poor families. However, this approach has not generated as much ethnic diversity as a race-based policy would. By contrast, affirmative action policies in the United States have fostered racial and ethnic diversity at a level that cannot be matched with class-based policies. Yet, class-based policies would do a better job at boosting the socioeconomic diversity at these bastions of privilege. The findings from both countries suggest that neither race-based nor class-based models by themselves can generate broad diversity. According to Alon, the best route for promoting both racial and socioeconomic diversity is to embed the consideration of race within class-based affirmative action. Such a hybrid model would maximize the mobility benefits for both socioeconomically disadvantaged and minority students. Race, Class, and Affirmative Action moves past political talking points to offer an innovative, evidence-based perspective on the merits and feasibility of different designs of affirmative action.
Race Against the Court
Author: Girardeau A. SpannPublisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814739792
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 282
Book Description
"Must reading for anyone who seeks a better understanding of the U.S. Supreme Court's role in race relations policy." —Choice "Beware! Those committed to the Supreme Court as the ultimate defender of minority rights should not read Race Against the Court. Through a systematic peeling away of antimajoritarian myth, Spann reveals why the measure of relief the Court grants victims of racial injustice is determined less by the character of harm suffered by blacks than the degree of disadvantage the relief sought will impose on whites. A truly pathbreaking work." —Derrick Bell As persuasive as it is bold. Race Against The Court stands as a necessary warning to a generation of progressives who have come to depend on the Supreme Court of the perils of such dependency. It joins with Bruce Ackerman's We, the People and John Brigham's Cult of the Court as the best in contemporary work on the Supreme Court. —Austin Sarat, William Nelson,Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, Amherst College The controversies surrounding the nominations, confirmations, and rejections of recent Supreme Court justices, and the increasingly conservative nature of the Court, have focused attention on the Supreme Court as never before. Although the Supreme Court is commonly understood to be the guardian of minority rights against the tyranny of the majority, Race Against The Court argues that the Court has never successfully performed this function. Rather the actual function of the Court has been to perpetuate the subordination of racial minorities by operating as an undetected agent of majoritarian preferences in the political preferences. In this provocative, controversial, and timely work, Girardeau Spann illustrates how the selection process for Supreme Court justices ensures that they will share the political preferences of the elite majority that runs the nation. Customary safeguards that are designed to protect the judicial process from majoritarian predispositions, Spann contends, cannot successfully insulate judicial decisionmaking from the pervasive societal pressures that exist to discount racial minority interests. The case most often cited as the icon of Court sensitivity to minority rights, Brown v. Board of Education, has more recently served to lull minorities into believing that efforts at political self-determination are futile, fostering a seductive dependence and overreliance on the Court as the caretaker of minority rights. Race Against The Court demonstrates how the Court has centralized the law of affirmative action in a way that stymies minority efforts for meaningful political and economic gain and how it has legitimated the legal status quo in a way that causes minorities never even to question the inevitability of their subordinate social status. Spann contends that racial minorities would be better off seeking to advance their interests in the pluralist political process and proposes a novel strategy for minorities to pursue in order to extricate themselves from the seemingly inescapable grasp of Supreme Court protection. Certain to generate lively, heated debate, Race Against The Court exposes the veiled majoritarianism of the Supreme Court and the dangers of allowing the Court to formulate our national racial policy.
Affirmative Action in Antidiscrimination Law and Policy
Author: Samuel LeiterPublisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791487962
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 335
Book Description
Affirmative action has been and continues to be the flashpoint of America's civil rights agenda. Yet while the affirmative action literature is voluminous, no comprehensive account of its major legal and public policy dimensions exists. Samuel and William M. Leiter examine the origin and growth of affirmative action, its impact on American society, its current state, and its future anti-discrimination role, if any. Informed by several different disciplines—law, history, economics, sociology, political science, urban studies, and criminology—the text combines the relevant legal materials with analysis and commentary from a variety of experts. This even-handed presentation of the subject of affirmative action is sure to be a valuable aid to those seeking to understand the issue's many complexities.
Affirmative Action and Representation
Author: Anthony Arthur PeacockPublisher:
ISBN: 9780890898840
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 416
Book Description
The Supreme Court's 1993 decision, Shaw v. Reno, was a bellwether in equal protection litigation, marking a significant turn away from earlier voting rights jurisprudence. Did Shaw, and subsequent Supreme Court cases reaffirming its holding, signal the end to affirmative action in redistricting, the beginning of a wholesale re-examination of the Voting Rights Act of 1965? The essays in this collection address this question, and related issues, with a view to assessing the implications of the Supreme Court's 1990s voting rights law. Balancing contributions from advocates and critics of affirmative action in voting rights, the book focuses on three issues that have emerged as determinative in 1990s voting rights litigation: (1) the significance of Shaw and post-Shaw jurisprudence; (2) alternative models of representation that have become increasingly important as the Supreme Court has intensified its scrutiny of race-conscious districting; and (3) the applicability of the Voting Rights Act to judicial elections, an issue left unaffected by Shaw. A postscript examining the Supreme Court's 1996 decisions, Bush v. Vera and Shaw v. Hunt, is also provided.