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Hopwood Vs Texas

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The Supreme Court has not offered an opinion on affirmative action in higher education since its 1978 ruling in Regents of the Univ. Of California v. Bakke. In that determination, the Supreme Courts Justice Powell argued that a university could take race into account as one among a number of factors in student admissions for the purposed of achieving student body diversity. Since the time of this ruling, affirmative action programs with regard to student admissions, financial assistance, and even faculty employment have been founded mainly on achieving diversity.

Since the Bakke decision, affirmative action has been an increasingly contentious issue between those in favor of its employment and those opposed to it. Those in favor of affirmative …show more content…

Such proposals view admissions as a procedure that must simply focus on merit not race or gender. One of the biggest court cases that veered out from the focus of Justice Powells opinion in Bakke is Hopwood v. Texas, where the judiciary argues that diversity does not supply a compelling interest for race-conscious decisions in student admissions. The Hopwood decisions spurred many countries to ban affirmative action programs or devise admissions criteria based only on merit. For example, after the decision Texas passed legislation permitting the top 10% of Texas high schools to be admitted to the University of Texas system, California adopted a plan to accept the top 4% of high school graduates of the University of California system, and Florida under its One Florida Initiative eliminated the consideration of race in admissions and guaranteed admissions to its colleges and universities for the top 20% of graduating high school …show more content…

For instance, some would be caused pleasure because it would make minorities feel that past discrimination was remedied. It would get to those admitted due to minority status happy. Still, it would have the potential to reach many others unhappy. Those who feel civil rights gains have corrected the imbalance in admissions would be distressed. Those admission candidates who merit to be accepted based on merit, but are given over for minorities to fulfill admission quotas for minorities would be distressed. Still, basing admissions solely on merit does not cause such unhappiness. As long as merit-based standards are used, minorities cannot be unhappy because if they merit admission they will be granted it. Thus, according to the utilitarian ethics, Affirmative Action should not be allowed in medical schools because there is an alternative course of action which creates more units of happiness. Since this form of action produces more happiness, it suffers a less evil tendency than Affirmative Action which has the potential to cause more unhappiness. Many courts are leaning toward this viewpoint with regard to decisions against Affirmative Action because they do not count it a means of creating

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