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Norton, a Former Chair of the EEOC, Says Tuesday’s Supreme Court Decision Threatens Affirmative Action in Employment and Areas Across the Board

April 23, 2014

WASHINGTON, DC – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), who was chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission when the seminal affirmative action college admissions decision of Regents of the University of California v. Bakke was handed down in 1978, permitting the use of race as one factor in college admissions, issued the following statement on Tuesday's Supreme Court ruling in Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action. The decision overturns the Sixth Circuit ruling and upholds Michigan Proposal 2, which prohibits affirmative action in public education, government contracting, and public employment.

"The equal employment opportunity laws that I administered could not have led to the creation of the nation's first African American middle class without the 1978 Bakke decision, which affirmed the use of race as a factor to encourage diversity in higher education. In the ensuing years, the Supreme Court tapered its original ruling, but Tuesday's Michigan case is a radical departure that threatens all affirmative action across the board in the several areas where it has been upheld. In its ruling on Michigan Proposal 2, the Supreme Court held that the 14th Amendment requirement of equal protection of the laws does not keep a voting majority from overturning the minority's right to affirmative action affirmed by the Court in Bakke. Although the Schuette case related to public universities in particular, Proposal 2 also includes public employment and government contracting. The legal basis for affirmative action in these two additional areas is different from the diversity rationale in Bakke. However, Tuesday's ruling virtually invites cases challenging affirmative action as a legal remedy across the board. There is little doubt that if government efforts to eliminate racial obstacles had been submitted to the voters, the progress we have seen would not have occurred."

Published: April 23, 2014