My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda Bunjelung Calcoltin woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Straight island and nations. We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
Good morning and welcome to the Daily os. It is somehow Monday, the third of July.
I'm zara, I'm sam.
The US Supreme Court decision means that universities in the US will no longer be able to consider race when selecting prospective students.
The Supreme Court has struck down race based admissions policies in colleges as unconstitutional.
Land marquees, so, returning nearly fifty years of precedent, the latest example of the conservative majority redefining American law. This means many colleges will have to change their admissions process and move away from affirmative action. So how did this all happen and what will the consequences be for racial minorities in the US. We're going to let you know. In today's Deep Dive, but first sam what is making headlines this morning.
Protests in France have continued over the weekend in response to the fatal police shooting of a teenager. France's Justice minister confirmed thousands of people have been arrested over the last five days, mostly in relation to the destruction of property and vehicles. Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron has canceled a state visit to Germany to oversee the crisis response.
Virgin Galactic has safely landed its first commercial flight. Passengers experienced a few minutes of weightlessness as they were taken to the edge of space. The flight above the US lasted seventy two minutes. A commercial flight for the Virgin Galactic has been in the works since two thousand and four, and the company's next scheduled spaceflight is planned for August.
The King of the Netherlands, King Willem Alexander, has delivered an official apology for his country's history of slavery, calling it a horror. About six hundred thousand people were believed to have been trafficked by Dutch slave traders, mostly in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In the speech, the King declared previous monarchs quotes took no steps against slavery and asked for forgiveness for the crystal clear lack of action.
And the good news. New Zealand has banned thin plastic bags for fruit and veggies across the country. The band was formalized last year, but came into effect on Saturday. Plastic sticker labels for fruits and veggies will also be phased out. The U s. Supreme Court has ruled that universities can't directly consider race in their selection processes. The decision restricts the ability of universities to pursue what's called affirmative action to boost representation of racial minorities.
I feel like affirmative action is one of those words that's thrown around the news, but we don't actually take the time to think about what it is. What is it?
So affirmative action is basically a way of trying to correct historical prejudice. And the way that affirmative action goes about it is by actively taking diversity into account when looking at applications. So in this instance, for universities got it. So this started in the nineteen seventies when the Supreme Court ruled that colleges could use race as a factor
when considering applications to universities. So this idea that in the past, certain minority groups hadn't been able to access universities to the same degree as perhaps their white counterparts had, and there was then a recognition that race should play
a role in applications. So it's not necessarily that race would per se be the determining factor or the only factor that allowed someone entry into university, but it basically meant that those people assessing applications could consider race during.
These process as one factor exactly.
So this story specifically focuses on two universities who use affirmative action processes. That's Harvard, heard of that one and the University of North Carolina, all.
Right, and what's happened with those two institutions.
So the Supreme Court was considering two cases that challenged the legality of admissions processes at these two unis at Harvard and the University of North Carolina, and their affirmative action practices were challenged on the basis that students were arguing it was unconstitutional because it was basically, in their eyes, racial discrimination.
So Zira, what were the grounds of the case.
Well, basically, the case depended on how to interpret the fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. So this specific amendment, the fourteenth one, was added after the abolition of slavery, and it gave US citizens the right to equal protection under the law. That's a direct quote. It was explicitly added
to address racial discrimination against former slaves. So the question is then whether this racial discrimination point, the equal protection point, should apply equally to everyone or specifically be used to allow will say positive discrimination to counteract racial inequality. Since nineteen seventy eight, the Supreme Court has effectively held the latter view, which created a precedent and allowed affirmative action.
And that's what's been to play in a number of US universities. But that's now changed. Did we hear anything from the Supreme Court justices about how they came to this new decision.
So it was a six ' to three decision. Six judges voted in favor, three against, and that means that the court overturned the view and declared that university's affirmative action policies were unconstitutional. In terms of explaining their position, the majority of justices argued that while race could be considered if it was tied to a student's quality of character. Policies could not allow quote stereotyping and could never treat
race as a quote negative factor. And so what these Supreme Court justices were arguing was that by positively viewing some races i e. It was helpful in a person's application, it ultimately meant that other races had the opposite effect, and that if it was seen as a positive contributing factor in some applications, inevitably it would mean the opposite in other applications. And so I'll read out a quote
of what the Court's decision said. It said, many universities have, for too long wrongly concluded that the touchstone of an individual's identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned, but the color of their skin. This nation's constitutional history does not tolerate that choice.
So it's important to note the current makeup of the Supreme Court. We have a majority conservative leaning Supreme Court. What did the three justices who opposed the decisions.
Well, we had some very strong statements from them. We had Justice Sonya Sotomayor who said that it had undone decades of precedent and momentous progress. She argued the purpose of equal protection was to address racial inequality and that this inequality still exists, and pointed to racial disparities in poverty and educational outcomes to prove her point. She called the US quote a segregated society where race has always
mattered and continues to matter. Equality requires acknowledgment of inequality. Fairly strong statement there. There was also President Joe Biden who spoke out against the ruling. He is, of course a Democrat, and the majority of the Supreme Court justices have been appointed by Republicans. He strongly disagrees with the decision because the truth is.
We all know it. Discrimination still exists in America. Discrimination still exists to America. Today's decision does not change that. It's a simple fact I A student had has overcome had to overcome adversity under path education. Collet should recognize.
And value there. We obviously spend a lot of time in the media talking about racial inequality in the US, but it's also an important discussion to have in an Australian context. How does affirmative action play out here at home?
So Australian law allows affirmative action and other forms of what we'll call positive discrimination in some circumstances. According to the Australian Human Rights Commission, discrimination is permitted if its aim is to quote foster greater inequality by supporting groups of people who face or have faced entrench discrimination. So, according to them, this may include, but isn't limited to,
things like race, sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity. I think the last thing I'll say is that it we're certainly living through a period where we have seen many momentous Supreme Court decisions that are overturning precedents that have been in place for a number of decades. I mean, we just marked the one year anniversary of Roe v. Wade being overturned by the Supreme Court, and here we have another really monumental shift in policy in the US. It's a fascinating time to watch.
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