Review of A Black and White Case: How Affirmative Action Survived Its Greatest Legal Challenge”

Review of A Black and White Case: How Affirmative Action Survived Its Greatest Legal Challenge - by Greg Stohr

Affirmative action policies are government or institutional efforts to end forms of discrimination against minorities; and challenges to, or acceptance of, those policies are critical social issues in American society.

In 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court decided two University of Michigan cases-Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger-concerning racial preferences in their admission policies for undergraduate and law school. Stohr, a Bloomberg News U.S. Supreme Court reporter, emphasizes the strategies of opposing litigating parties in developing their arguments. Special attention is paid to the judges' conflicts at the U.S. Court of Appeals and how the parties built coalitions to obtain friend-of-court briefs at the U.S. Supreme Court in these socially and politically charged cases.

Stohr shows key elements in the justices' assessment of the value of racial diversity on college campuses, but he does not explore strategic activities among the justices in either case; nor does he examine how the U.S. Supreme Court is central to deciding these emotional issues in the American political system. Recommended for public libraries for its understanding of a key social issue and the U.S. Supreme Court.-