70 research outputs found
2025 Sub-Librarians Meeting: The Adventure of Lomax the Sub-librarian Featuring Lyndsay Faye
No full textALA Best Historical Award-winning (and twice Edgar Award-nominated) Sherlockian author, Lyndsay Faye, will give a presentation on Lomax--the sub-librarian of the British Library and namesake of the Sherlock Holmes society, the Sub-librarians Scion of the Baker Street Irregulars. Her comments will draw upon her own research and her experience in writing her short story “The Gospel of Sheba,” a bibliomystery centered around a lethal grimoire, narrated via Lomax\u27s private journals. The presentation will be followed by 15 minutes of Q&A
Affirmative Action in the United States
No full textThe difficulty with the issue of affirmative action is deciding whether it is a sound policy to redress past discriminations. If so, is it legally permissible under current statutes and constitutional interpretation to advance race conscious admission polices at public institutions? The answers to these questions hold the key to the ultimate future and success of affirmative action. This paper will discuss the history of affirmative action in education in the United States, as well as analyzing how affirmative action laws have been applied. Additionally, this paper will analyze the repercussions of affirmative action laws by looking at various state lawsuits and their outcomes. Finally, this paper will be used to suggest possible alternatives and improvements to the ongoing process of applying affirmative action. Throughout the course of this analysis on affirmative action, I will attempt to explain why affirmative action policies are not legally permissible under constitutional law.Affirmative Action in the United States
Is this a sound policy to remedy past
discriminations?
Is this legally pennissible under current statutes and
constitutional interpretation?
Lyndsay Larson
Thesis
Chris Gilbert - Advisor
05/22/00
Gustavus Student Repository
Introduction
The history of affirmative action in the United States
is a confusing one. Discrimination has been and still is
sometimes rampant in American society. Through laws and
regulations, elimination of discrimination has been
attempted. One such measure to eliminate discrimination has
been affirmative action. Affirmative action is defined as
efforts to expand opportunities for women or racial, ethnic
and national origin minorities who have been subjected to
discrimination. However, affirmative action measures in the
educational setting are currently being hotly debated. The
question is whether affirmative action policies are in
effect, promoting reverse discrimination.
Beginning in the 1960's, public colleges and
universities have adopted affirmative action plans in order
to address the history of racial discrimination at their
institutions. Many of the same institutions have recently
faced criticism and legal redress for applying what has
become known as reverse discrimination. The Equal Protection
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States
Constitution has been interpreted to mean that
discrimination against minorities in admission policies is
illegal. This interpretation raises questions about
discrimination of whites, and grapples with deciding who
falls under the "any person" aspect of the Fourteenth
Amendment.
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The future of affirmative action is in doubt. Recent
federal cases such as Regents of University of California v.
Bakke, and Hopwood v. State of Texas have shown that using
racial quotas in admission policies violates the Fourteenth
Amendment and the 1964 Civil Rights Act. There are also
currently numerous state-level lawsuits, which contend that
using race as a factor in admission criteria is illegal.
However, proponents of affirmative action policies claim
that the aftermath of the Bakke and Hopwood cases, along
with California Proposition 209, is ruining racial
diversification on United States campuses. So, what can be
done about affirmative action? Are there alternatives short
of simply outlawing all affirmative action policies? There
have been numerous proposals and suggestions, including
"percentage solutions" and "adversity indexes" to name a
few.
The difficulty with the issue of affirmative action is
deciding whether it is a sound policy to redress past
discriminations. If so, is it legally permissible under
current statutes and constitutional interpretation to
advance race conscious admission polices at public
institutions? The answers to these questions hold the key to
the ultimate future and success of affirmative action. This
paper will discuss the history of affirmative action in
education in the United States, as well as analyzing how
affirmative action laws have been applied. Additionally,
this paper will analyze the repercussions of affirmative
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action laws by looking at various state lawsuits and their
outcomes. Finally, this paper will be used to suggest
possible alternatives and improvements to the ongoing
process of applying affirmative action. Throughout the
course of this analysis on affirmative action, I will
attempt to explain why affirmative action policies are not
legally permissible under constitutional law.
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I. Chapter 1
History of Affirmative Action in
Education
Before one can really look at how affirmative action
made its way into the educational setting, it is important
to discuss why affirmative action was even pursued. In order
to understand this one must analyze the U. S. Supreme Court
case of Plessy v. Ferguson. In 1892, Homer Plessy who was
seven-eighths Caucasian, took a seat in a "whites-only" car
in a Louisiana train. He refused to move to the car reserved
for the blacks, and was promptly arrested. Twenty-four years
earlier, Congress and the states had ratified the Fourteenth
Amendment, which requires states to provide all persons with
"equal protection of the laws" and "due process of the laws"
before taking away life, liberty, and property. So, the
question in the Plessy case was whether the racial
segregation on trains was an infringement on Homer Plessy's
right to equal protection.
In May of 1896, the Supreme Court ruled that Louisiana
was within its constitutional rights. The justices based
their decision on the separate-but-equal doctrine: that
separate facilities for blacks and whites satisfied the
Fourteenth Amendment so long as the facilities were equal.
In short, segregation does not in itself constitute unlawful
discrimination (Oyez Project).
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The Beginnings of School Desegregation
Not until the Hughes Court was there a suggestion that
racially segregated schools might be constitutionally
suspect. In the U. S. Supreme Court case, Missouri ex. rel.
Gaines v. Canada, 305 U.S. 337 (1938) the Court struck down
a portion of Missouri's law that, while denying blacks
admission to its law school, provided funding for blacks to
attend law schools in other states. Gaines, a black citizen
of Missouri, had qualified for the University of Missouri's
Law School and wanted very much to attend. The Court held
that the equal protection clause had indeed been violated
because Missouri failed to provide a law school for blacks.
As a result of the ruling, Missouri established a separate
all-black law school. Although Gaines attempted to challenge
the separate-but-equal doctrine, its constitutionality was
not seriously questioned.
The next case questioning the constitutionality of the
separate-but-equal doctrine was Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S.
629 ( 1950). Sweatt, a black man, applied for admission to
the all-white University of Texas Law School. Sweatt's
application was rejected, and he refused to go to the
"separate but equal" black facility, citing lack of
resources, faculty, and prestige, in comparison to the white
law school. The Court decided that the black law school was
unequal, and ordered the admission of Sweatt into the
University of Texas Law School. This case did not however,
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sweep away the separate-but-equal doctrine. In effect, this
case only permitted the entrance of Sweatt, due to the
inequality of the black facility. The reason the separatebut-
equal doctrine continued to stand after this case was
that the Court still believed that there could be equality
in separate facilities. The easiest remedy for the Court at
that point in history was to simply admit Sweatt, but
continue to allow for separate-but-equal facilities.
In 1951, a case challenging the constitutionality of
racially segregated public schools arrived on the Supreme
Court docket. This case was Brown v. Board of Education of
Topeka, Kansas, 347 U. S. 483 (1954) (aka Brown v. Board I. ).
This case was consolidated with four other cases. Black
children were being denied admission to public schools
attended by white children. The Court was badly split, and
decided to put off oral arguments until the next term. In
this time Chief Justice Vincent died and was replaced by
Earl Warren, who would later be a pivotal part of the
decision.
The question presented to the Court was whether
segregation of children in public schools solely on the
basis of race deprives minority children of equal protection
of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment (Oyez
Project). The Court unanimously decided racial segregation
in public education had a detrimental effect on minority
children, because segregation is a sign of inferiority. The
idea of separate-but-equal was totally struck down as it was
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inherently f ound that separateness was unequal (D. O'Brian,
1273).
In the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka,
Kansas II. 349 U.S. 294 (1955) the Court was f aced with
deciding how desegregation should be implemented, as it was
facing much resistance. The Court decided that the problems
identified in Brown I. varied a great deal with local
situations. The Court gave much of the responsibility to
local school authorities and courts with the guideline that
these localities move toward prompt compliance "with all
deliberate speed" (Oyez Project).
Implementing School Desegregation
In 1958 came the case of Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U. S. I.
78 (1958). Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas had
been scheduled for integration for the fall of 1957.
However, Governor Orval Faubus called out the state's
National Guard troops to keep the black children from
entering the high school to begin the desegregation process.
An injunction by U.S. Attorney General Herbert Brownell let
the eight black children be admitted despite Governor
Faubus' efforts. There was still severe resistance to this
action and President Dwight Eisenhower was f orced to send
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federal Army troops to Little Rock to enforce the court
order and protect the black children.
In February of 1958, William Cooper, a member of the
Little Rock School Board, asked a federal district court for
a two-and-one-half year delay in implementation, citing
safety reasons. The parents of one of the black students,
John Aaron, sued William Cooper, and Cooper then appealed to
the U. S. Supreme Court. The Court unanimously ruled in favor
of Aaron, saying that the implementation delay does not
comply with the "all deliberate speed" ruling in Brown II.
The Court recognized the good faith effort of the Little
Rock School Board, but found that the Arkansas legislature
and Governor had not acted in good faith. This case was
important in that the Court stood firmly behind its decision
in Brown, and it was evident that despite challenges by
particular states, this ruling was here to stay.
Affirmative Action & Integration in Higher
Education
In the late 1960's the federal government began
promoting "affirmative action" programs aimed at increasing
the opportunities available for blacks, women, and other
minorities in education and employment. Following the
enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, President Johnson
issued Executive Order No. 11246, encouraging the use of
affirmative action programs to overcome the effects of past
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and present discrimination (D. O'Brian, 1315). I n the 1970's
the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW, now
the Departments of Education and Health & Human Services)
issued guidelines and threatened the withdrawal of f ederal
f unds from colleges and universities that failed to comply
with the admission goals for blacks, women, and other
minorities.
I n 1974, the Supreme Court faced a challenge to the
aff irmative action programs: reverse discrimination. In the
case of DeFunis v. Odegaard, 416 U. S. 312 (1974) Odegaard, a
white student, was denied a place in the 150-student
entering class of the University of Washington Law School.
He claimed he was rejected because minority students were
f avored. By the time the case reached the Supreme Court,
DeFunis had already graduated from another university and
his case was considered moot. Not until four years later was
the issue of reverse discrimination constitutionally
challenged with residual effects.
This brings us to the important case of Regents of the
University of California v. Bakke, 438 U. S. 265 (1978),
where the Supreme Court handed down its major ruling on
aff irmative action programs in higher education. Alan Bakke,
a white male, applied but was denied admission to the
Medical School at the University of Calif ornia at Davis. In
a f irst year class of 100, 16 positions were reserved for
"disadvantaged" minority students. Bakke had twice been
denied admission despite his qualifications (MCAT & college
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GPA) exceeding those of any minority student admitted in the
two years his applications were rejected (Oyez Project).
Bakke decided to challenge the constitutionality of the
admission policy for minorities, contending that he was
denied admission on account of his race. So, the question
facing the Court was whether the University of California
violated the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause
and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, by practicing an
affirmative action policy that resulted in the repeated
rejection of Alan Bakke's application for admission to its
medical school (Schwartz, 79).
The Regents countered that their affirmative action
polices were used for four reasons: One, to reduce the
deficit of minorities in medicine; two, to counteract social
discriminations; three, to increase doctors in under-served
communities; and finally, to diversify the student body.
The Court ruling was messy and confusing, to say the
least. The ruling was twofold. It held first that the
University could not have fixed quotas or set-aside places
for minority applicants in medical school if white
applicants were denied a chance to compete for those places
(Kinder). Since quotas were determined to be
unconstitutional, the Court ruled that Alan Bakke be
admitted to the University of California Davis Medical
School. Justice Powell, delivering the opinion of the Court,
found that using numbers and quotas is unconstitutional, and
that the University could not remedy society at the expense
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of individuals. Also, in response to U. C. Davis' claim to
increase doctors in under-served communities, the Court
responded by pointing out that the minority applicants would
not necessarily return to serve minority neighborhoods. The
Court also required the elimination of the special admission
programs.
The second aspect of the Court's decision was
considered by some as contradictory to the first part of the
decision. The Court decided that race could be a criteria
for admissions - just not the deciding factor (438 U. S.
26 5). The Court held that the objective to diversify the
student body is constitutional (but ineffective if only
relying on quotas}. They found that race and ethnic origin
may be considered in reviewing applications without
violating the Equal Protection Clause, as long as those
criteria are not the sole basis for admittance (Kinder}.
Powell stated in the opinion that affirmative action, but
not quotas, is permissible because under the First Amendment
universities need a diverse student body to ensure academic
freedom and the educational process (D. O'Brian}. Proponents
of affirmative action have seized on the second part of the
Bakke decision as a "greenlight" for racial preferences in
admission practices at public universities.
The Bakke decision was the precedent for roughly
eighteen years. In that time public universities continued
to admit minorities in large numbers, all the while doing so
with "diversity" in mind, not "quotas. " This was the
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precedent until 1992 when Cheryl Hopwood filed a lawsuit
(along with three other white law-school applicants) against
the University of Texas Law School in Hopwood v. State of
Texas. They asserted that they were denied admissions
because affirmative action policies gave unfair preferences
to less-qualified, minority applicants (Applebome).
The three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit U. S. Court of
Appeals in New Orleans ruled in 1996 that the law school's
admission policies were illegal, and that the Supreme
Court's ruling in the Bakke reverse discrimination case was
no longer valid. Unlike the Bakke decision, which supported
some affirmative action measures, the Hopwood case nullified
any motivations for racial preferences (Frontline 1999).
The 5th Circuit Court ruling said that the law school may not
use race as a factor in admissions, even for the purpose of
diversification (Applebome). This ruling however, is only
effective in the 5th Circuit, covering Texas, Louisiana, and
Mississippi, although only Texas has thus far adopted the
strict interpretation of the Hopwood decision.
To date, the Supreme Court has refused to hear the
Hopwood case - indicating its willingness to let states pass
anti-affirmative action measures on a specific state-bystate
basis. By agreeing not to separate applications based
on race or ethnicity, the University of Texas Law School
took steps to ensure more constitutional admission policies.
Another result from the Hopwood decision was that all
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affirmative action practices have been banned at Texas
institutions (Selingo 1999a).
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II. Chapter 2
Application of Affirmative Action
Due to the conflicting decisions in the Bakke and
Hopwood cases, applying affirmative action policies in
higher education has been diff icult. Many states are
f ollowing the Texas trend of outlawing aff irmative action
programs at their public institutions. Examples of these
efforts can be found in California, where Proposition 209
was passed, ending affirmative action, and in Michigan,
where two lawsuits are challenging the University of
Michigan's admission policies. There has also been an
initiative passed in Washington, and pending initiatives in
Florida. The overall application of af f irmative action
programs in higher education seems to be on the decline.
Many of the applications of these laws are being done to
stop aff irmative action policies, not to advance them.
California Proposition 209
I n September 1992, the Department of Education
announced that, f rom 1988 to 1990, the University of
California Berkeley's Boalt School of Law shielded minority
applicants from competition with white students in an eff ort
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to meet affirmative action quotas (Frontline 1999).
Investigators detailed a system in which the school divided
applicants by race and ethnicity and compared each applicant
only to others within the same group. The school denied and
wrongdoing, but agreed not to separate applicants based on
race or ethnicity in the future (Frontline 1999).
Three years later, all University of California
campuses came under fire for their affirmative action
programs. On January 19, 1995, University of California
Board of Regents member Ward Connerly announced he would
work to replace the university's affirmative actin programs
with something more just. Ward Connerly and California
Governor Pete Wilson eventually worked together to bring the
issue before the entire Board of Regents
(URL:www. ldfa.org/209.htmll.
On July 20, 1995, the Board of Regents voted 15-10 to
end race based preferences in admissions, hiring, and
contracting. On November, 5, 1996, California voters gave
their support and 54% of the California electorate voted yes
on Proposition 209 - a ballot initiative banning all
affirmative action in government employment and public
education - affirming the Governor's earlier attempts to end
racial preferences in the University of California system
(Frontline 1999).
The official text of California Proposition 209
"prohibits the state, local government, districts, public
universities, colleges, schools, and other government
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instrumentalities from discriminating against or giving
preferential treatment to any individual or group in public
employment, public education, or public contracting on the
basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin
(URL: www. econ. csuchico. edu/~muradt) . "
The Proposition 209 ban went into effect at graduate
and professional schools in 1996 , and in 1998 at the
undergraduate level (Frontline 1999). Similarly, Washington
passed Initiative 200 in 1998, which ended preferences based
on race and gender by public universities. Ward Connerly of
the Calif ornia Board of Regents, spearheaded this ef f ort, as
he did with Proposition 209.
Attacking Proposition 209 in the Courts
One day af ter Calif ornia voters passed Proposition 209,
the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and a coalition of
civil right groups f iled a suit to block the enf orcement of
Proposition 209 (Americans United For Aff irmative Action).
However, on April 9, 1997, a three-judge panel from the 9'"
Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, ruling Proposition 209
to be constitutional.
The passing of Calif ornia's Proposition 209 leads us to
believe that some of the American electorate approves antiaffirmative
action measures. The fact that this Proposition
was challenged and still f ound to be constitutional shows
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the courts' willingness to intervene in these state-level
efforts to end reverse discrimination. The significance of
Proposition 209 is twofold. One, it shows voters that they
can vote and actually make a difference, and two,
Boys and girls in the reading club: conversations about gender and reading in an urban elementary school
No full textMethods and applications for space-time data
No full textSpatial and spatio-temporal data are presented in a variety of forms and require a unique set of techniques to analyze. The goal of such analyses is often to estimate the spatial and/or temporal dependency structures of the underlying random field. This estimation in turn can then be used to make inference about the underlying random process. Recurring challenges with spatial data include a lack of multiple realizations of the process, e.g. a lack of replicates and the estimation of dependency structures given this difficulty. In this work, I contributed to solving this problem based on both geostatistical and areal data using likelihood and Bayesian methods respectively.
A nonstationary spatio-temporal model is proposed which applies the concept of the dimension expansion method in Bornn et al. (2012). The estimation of this model is investigated and simulations are conducted for both separable and nonseparable space-time covariance models. The model is also illustrated with wind speed and streamflow datasets. Both simulation and data analyses show that modeling nonstationarity in both space and time can improve the predictive performance over stationary covariance models or models that are nonstationary in space but stationary in time.
In demand of predicting new HIV diagnosis rates based on publicly available HIV data that is abundant in space but has few points in time, a class of spatially varying autoregressive (SVAR) models compounded with conditional autoregressive (CAR) spatial correlation structures is proposed. The copula approach coupled with a flexible CAR formulation are employed to model the dependency between adjacent counties. These models allow for spatial and temporal correlation as well as space-time interactions and are naturally suitable for predicting spatio-temporal disease data that feature such a data structure. The models also allow us to estimate the spatially varying evolution pattern of the disease. We apply the proposed models to HIV data over Florida, California and New England states and compare them to a range of linear mixed models that have been recently popular for modeling spatio-temporal disease data. The results show that for such data our proposed models outperform the others in terms of prediction.Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'U of I Access', the embargo will last until 2019-05-01The student, Lyndsay Shand, accepted the attached license on 2017-04-12 at 22:09.The student, Lyndsay Shand, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2017-04-12 at 22:26.This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2017-04-13 at 15:13.DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #10733 on 2017-08-10 at 15:05:30Made available in DSpace on 2017-08-10T20:32:53Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 3
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Previous issue date: 2017-04-13Embargo set by: Colleen Fallaw for item 102749
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2013 Sub-Librarians Meeting: An Afternoon with Sherlock Holmes
No full textAn afternoon with Sherlock Holmes sponsored by ALCTS, the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services. At the 36th (Irregular) Annual meeting, Marsha Pollak welcomed the group, local area scion representatives brought greetings, and the traditional toasts followed: Lomax, The Sub-Librarian of the London Library by George Scheetz; Sherlock Holmes, Bookman and Special Librarian by Gary Thaden; Hill Barton (John H. Watson, M.D.), Library Patron by Susan Diamond; Baron Gruner, Collector by Marsha Pollak; and Kitty Winter, a Wronged Woman by Lyndsay Faye.
Charles Finch, author of the Charles Lennox series of mysteries set in Victorian era England, spoke. He presented through the courtesy of Macmillan Publishers, who also provided books for signing.
Local assistance thanks to Susan Diamond of the Criterion Bar Association, Don Terras of the Hounds of the Baskerville (sic), and other scions for spreading the word
Popular culture and the reading teacher: a case for feminist pedagogy
No full textReading teachers concerned with gender equity have struggled to find ways in which to critically engage with students' popular culture. Traditionally, feminist reading teachers have seen popular texts as mechanisms for the reproduction of dysfunctional gender relations. However, this perspective is often met with resistance by young readers. In this paper, we argue that texts, such as Archie comics, that have traditionally been seen as mechanisms for the reproduction of patriarchy are more complex than they first appear. Through the critical analysis of an Archie story, Fairytale Land Revisited, we offer an example of how educators concerned with gender equity might use feminist post-structural theory to encourage students to engage critically and productively with popular texts
‘Every day he has a dream to tell’: classroom literacy curriculum in a full-day kindergarten
No full textHelping out, signing up and sitting down: The cultural production of “read-alouds” in three kindergarten classrooms
No full textGender and mathematics at play: parents' constructions for their preschoolers' mathematical capabilities
No full textUsing sociocultural learning theories and feminist post structural theories of gender, we explore how a diverse group of parents (n = 28) construct their preschool sons and daughters as capable/not capable of doing mathematics. Our study examines the interactions between parents and children while playing an age appropriate board game. Following an analysis of the parents' words and gestures, we found that on average, parents modeled mathematical procedures equally for daughters and sons, prompted their sons to complete mathematical procedures almost twice as frequently as they prompted their daughters, and enacted executive autonomy much more frequently with their daughters than with their sons. In other words, in the context of playing this board game the parents in this study appeared to construct their preschool sons and daughters as having a fairly equal potential for understanding math but constructed their sons as currently capable mathematicians more often than they constructed their preschool daughters this way. Implications for educators and researchers are considered
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