Affirmative Action

Civil rights groups and aspiring minority college students have lost the latest bid to get the University of California to resume considering race in its admissions decisions. Proposition 209 banned the state's public universities from using racial preferences to increase the ranks of black, Latino and Native American students, and the 1996 voter initiative has already withstood several constitutional challenges. Two years ago, a class of prospective students and affirmative action advocates sued then-Gov.

John Payton, a leading civil rights lawyer who defended the University of Michigan's affirmative action policy before the Supreme Court and led the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, has died. He was 65. Payton died Thursday at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore after a brief illness, the New York-based NAACP fund announce. In a prepared statement, President Obama called him a "dear friend" and "true champion of equality" who helped "protect civil rights in the classroom and at the ballot box. " A Los Angeles native, Payton was born in 1946 to an insurance adjuster and his wife.

For 40 years, competitive colleges and universities in the United States have taken race into account in order to increase their enrollment of African Americans (and, to a lesser extent, other minorities). Originally justified as a way to compensate for a long legacy of racial discrimination, and later embraced as a way to provide a more diverse learning environment, affirmative action has been good for the United States. It has made it easier for minorities to enter the educational and professional mainstream without compromising the rigor of American higher education.

The Supreme Court cast doubt Tuesday on the future of affirmative action at the nation's colleges and universities, agreeing to hear an appeal from a white student in Texas who seeks an end to "racial preferences" in college admissions. The decision could either limit the use of affirmative action or broadly forbid using race as an admissions factor. However, because the court's calendar is filled through the spring, the court will not hear arguments in the case until October, weeks before the presidential election.

Ward Connerly, a former University of California regent who led efforts to end affirmative action here and across the country, has been accused by a former employee of mismanaging donations for personal gain. Jennifer Gratz, who resigned in September, has sent a letter to the board of the nonprofit organization Connerly heads in Sacramento, urging an investigation into what she termed financial irregularities and excessive compensation to Connerly. Before working for Connerly, Gratz was the named plaintiff in a landmark 2003 Supreme Court case that struck down race-based admissions at the University of Michigan.

Ira Michael Heyman, a champion of affirmative action who led UC Berkeley as its chancellor during the 1980s and later became the first non-scientist to lead the Smithsonian Institution, has died. He was 81. Heyman died at his Berkeley home Saturday after a long battle with emphysema. The Smithsonian and the university announced his death Monday. During 10 years as UC Berkeley chancellor, Heyman increased minority representation in the student body and on the faculty, efforts that stirred considerable debate and controversy.

The Supreme Court on Monday opens one of its most anticipated terms, in which the justices could strike down President Obama's healthcare law, empower local police to arrest illegal immigrants, and declare an end to affirmative action in colleges and universities. The cases coming before the court "address some of the central issues facing the country," said former Solicitor General Walter Dellinger. The clashes over healthcare and immigration "are not mere lawyers' issues, but fundamental questions about how the country is governed.

You can look it up Re "Frosted by the 'diversity' bake sale," Sept. 28 To make their bake sale truly reflective of affirmative action, the Berkeley College Republicans should have made known what led up to this policy. They should have found a store owned by a Mexican and then forcibly taken it from him and killed all those who dared to resist. Then they should have enslaved several black families and forced them to make the baked goods. Then, to complete the event, they should have imported some Asians and paid them starvation wages to ferry the goods to UC Berkeley.

In the next 10 days, Gov. Jerry Brown must decide whether to sign a bill that could put race and gender back into the admissions process at California's public universities 15 years after the state's voters banned affirmative action. The proposed law would allow the University of California and California State University systems to "consider" applicants' race, gender and household income to diversify student bodies. The author says he crafted it to avoid conflict with Proposition 209, the ballot measure voters passed in 1996 that prohibited preferential treatment of minority groups by the state.