High court looks at race in college admissions
Legal News Center
Nine years after the Supreme Court said colleges and universities can use race in their quest for diverse student bodies, the justices have put this divisive social issue back on their agenda in the middle of a presidential election campaign.
Nine years is a blink of the eye on a court where justices can look back two centuries for legal precedents. But with an ascendant conservative majority, the high court in arguments Wednesday will weigh whether to limit or even rule out taking race into account in college admissions.
The justices will be looking at the University of Texas program that is used to help fill the last quarter or so of its incoming freshman classes. Race is one of many factors considered by admissions officers. The rest of the roughly 7,100 freshman spots automatically go to Texans who graduated in the top 8 percent of their high school classes.
A white Texan, Abigail Fisher, sued the university after she was denied a spot in 2008.
The simplest explanation for why affirmative action is back on the court's calendar so soon after its 2003 decision in Grutter v. Bollinger is that the author of that opinion, Sandra Day O'Connor, has retired. Her successor, Justice Samuel Alito, has been highly skeptical of any use of racial preference.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, a dissenter in the 2003 decision, probably holds the deciding vote, and he, too, has never voted in favor of racial preference.
Related listings
-
High court uphold WV congressional districts
Legal News Center 09/28/2012The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld West Virginia's congressional redistricting plan against a challenge that small population variations among its three congressional districts violate the Constitution. The justices, in an unsigned opinion, reversed...
-
Federal agency charged with enforcing consumer finance laws
Legal News Center 09/14/2012The new federal agency charged with enforcing consumer finance laws is emerging as an ambitious sheriff, taking on companies for deceptive fees and marketing and unmoved by protests that its tactics go too far. In the 14 months it has existed, the Co...
-
Lawyer: NM gov aide recorded on state email use
Legal News Center 09/07/2012An Albuquerque attorney said Tuesday he has a recording of the governor's top aide telling one of his clients that he never uses state email to conduct business because "I don't want to go to court (or) jail." But the aide said the small recorded cli...
Grounds for Divorce in Ohio - Sylkatis Law, LLC
A divorce in Ohio is filed when there is typically “fault” by one of the parties and party not at “fault” seeks to end the marriage. A court in Ohio may grant a divorce for the following reasons:
• Willful absence of the adverse party for one year
• Adultery
• Extreme cruelty
• Fraudulent contract
• Any gross neglect of duty
• Habitual drunkenness
• Imprisonment in a correctional institution at the time of filing the complaint
• Procurement of a divorce outside this state by the other party
Additionally, there are two “no-fault” basis for which a court may grant a divorce:
• When the parties have, without interruption for one year, lived separate and apart without cohabitation
• Incompatibility, unless denied by either party
However, whether or not the the court grants the divorce for “fault” or not, in Ohio the party not at “fault” will not get a bigger slice of the marital property.