AFFIRMATIVE ACTION UPHELD

by the Supreme Court, though they did strike down UMich's point system.

What? They endorsed affirmative action? After the California Patriot devoted an entire issue to attacking it? After so few many overpriced baked goods were sold? How could the Scalia 5 ignore such striking rhetorical advances?

Jeralyn has a lot more.

I figure that, because it was a split decision, both sides are going to attempt to claim some measure of victory. On the other hand, things seem rather bitchy and nitpicky over at Volokh.

Whenever you think about this case, remember who the plaintiffs are:

In 1997, the year that two white students sued, the school had 13,500 applicants and selected 3,958 of them as freshmen.

The white plaintiffs, Jennifer Gratz and Patrick Hamacher, were Michigan residents with good grades and other qualifications when they were rejected at the flagship Ann Arbor campus. Both have since graduated from other colleges. (italics mine)

You mean another university let these go-getters in? How lucky for them! America is truly the land of opportunity, where even if you're white and are rejected by one school, you can get into another!

According to these brief biographies, Gratz attended and graduated from University of Michigan at Dearborn, while Hamacher attended Michigan State. Oh lord, what miserable years those must have been for them. Gratz moping around the Dearborn campus for four years, telling everyone within earshot how unhappy she was to be there, and believing herself to be doomed to work at the nearby Ford Motor Company plant. ("at least it's still running!" shouted a nearby documentary filmmaker) And as for Hamacher, did he not apply to any other schools in the UM system? But in general, all racial concerns aside, if your highschool GPA is 3.373 and you scored a 28 on the ACT, you might have a tough time getting into Ann Arbor, where you might be in the middle of the pack.

To them, I raise my glass (er, can of Pepsi One) and congratulate them on earning degrees from solid public universities!

And of course, no affirmative action case is complete without some photo-related irony and accidental humor:


("weeee shall overcommme some-daaaaaayyyy")

As an old instructor of mine used to say,

that's the sound of the *world's smallest violin* playing "my heart bleeds for you".