N theus a tweet or joi conversation on facebook. Com cspan. Mail journal cspan. Org we will get your thoughts in a minute but joining us on the phone is richard wolf to talk about yesterdays decision. Background first on this case, how it came before the Supreme Court. Me. T thank you for having the last set of major cases are in 2003, both out of michigan. One of which said that the university of michigan undergraduate school could not use quotas, racial preference quotas. Lawother one said the school could use race among. Ther factors that said opponents of racial preferences to get a sed,titutional minute pas they succeeded in 2006. It has been the subject of legal efforts. To thee finally gets Supreme Court after the lower. Ourt ruled one way the Supreme Court yesterday, after oral arguments in october, the Supreme Court took six months to come up with this decision and in a 62 decision said it was not for them to overrule what state voters wanted visavis preferences at universities. Host who were the judges that join together and what do they and whatrational did they say about their rationale. Guest there was a plurality. Anthony kennedy is frequently the swing vote and wrote the plurality opinion with chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito joining him. Three others concurred and ruled for the state to have the ban, but for different reasons. Justices scalia, thomas, and justice breyer, who is more frequently aligned with the liberals. Opinion. A third they said the ban is upheld. Side, Justice Sotomayor or and justice the dissent. E Justice Elena kagan was recused, that is why it is 62. 62. Is presumably, she was involved in this case to some level when she was solicitor general. Host lets look at what Justice Kennedy had to say. This is not about how racial preferences should be resolved, it is about who should resolve it. There is no authority for the judiciary to set aside michigan lost that commit this to the voters. What is he saying . About this case was not reading, giving a summation of his 18 page opinion when he spoke from the bench. Whethernot about universities can have affirmative action policies, they can. That court has ruled that they can, although the majority thinks it is very tenuous. This is about whether states can choose or a government body can but we aree they can going to have a referendum in our state to decide whether they can. The voters say they cannot have. That becomes law if Voters Decide that, they have overruled what the court has said universities can do. It is not so much over affirmative action policies over what Political Action can be taken at what level of government. This action by the voters of michigan can be taken and it is not for us to overrule them. Host what president did they set with this decision . None, what i mentioned before, there were three justices there was no majority for a reason. That is very important. The Supreme Court decided yesterday that the state could do this but they did not decide why. Picture another state, say the state of maine decides we are going to ban racial preferences and they get taken to court. The lower courts in that state are not bound. This decision was not decided based on any one thing. In justices minds, it was different reasons. Host some justices said this is about race, what did we hear from them question mark guest that was the most interesting part of this case. The vehemence of Justice Sotomayor. Since she came on the court in 2009, she had never read a dissent from the bench, which is a fairly unusual occurrence. Justice ginsburg did it four or five times in the last term. , anwrote a 58 page dissent extraordinary length, she was very vehement in reading a portion of her dissent from the bench yesterday. She is accusing the other justices or at least several of them of being naive. Justice roberts said the way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is the way to stop discriminating, just stop discriminating rather than coming up with new court decisions. Her dissent basically said that is naive. There is still Racial Injustice and a need to overcome Racial Injustice. The policy that michigan and acted by a constitutional amendment sets back racial minorities beside the others. The key to this case. From the point of view of those who oppose the ban at from the point of view of Justice Sotomayor and justice ginsburg, what this amendment does, the amendment is worded very neutrally. It is very short. What Justice Sotomayor said in her dissent is as a result of with if you are a student a legacy status, one of your parents went to the school, or if you are a star athlete, you can continue to try to get into the public universities in to the schooling board and going to University Officials and trying to get in through the normal admissions channels. But if you are a racial minority, the only way you can do that is to try to overturn the state constitution. Bans onher states have affirmative action. What has been the result of those bans . Into the evidence came play from the opponents and from soto mayor. Seven other states have similar bans, including california and florida. Some of them have had far more success than others in having arguen, which one could is a good thing to try to do, without upsetting the percentages of minorities that get into the states most perceived as schools. Florida has had notable success in coming up with other ways to continue to attract and admit minority students. California and michigan have not. Their enrollment of minority students, blacks and hispanics in particular, have declined due in part or in full to having these bans. That was part of Justice Sotomayors dissent. She even had bar graphs in her 58 page dissent showing those declines at the top schools in university of the michigan ann arbor. This has been going on in michigan because, since the ban was passed in 2006, it was struck down. It was overturned and allow, back and forth by the district and the circuit courts. It has been allowed to stay in effect while being challenged. Both in california and in michigan, there has been a notable decline in the percentage of minority students at the states best schools. Host we will get our viewers to weigh in. I want you to talk about another piece you have in the paper today on oral arguments before the spring court yesterday. The justices will be deciding how you watch television. What is this case . What did you make of the oral arguments . Guest it is a fascinating case. It has to do with an internet startup named aereo that operates in a bunch of cities around the country. But are not nationwide yet hope to be. They can stream live broadcast television into your home with dime sized antennas, each antenna goes to one home. By doing that, they claim they are not a public performance, they are a private performance. Therefore, they do not have to pay retransmission fees to the broadcast networks. It came to the court, there was a lot of thought that the court would look with disdain upon this Business Model and say this is ridiculous, you only have dime sized antennas sitting and Circuit Boards on rooftops in various cities to get around copyright laws. There was a lot of rhetoric along those lines. If you look back at the oral arguments for the best quotes, all of them tend to be justices being very skeptical of this Business Model. It is not totally clear that the court will rule against aereo, that is why it is interesting. If they do not rule against aereo, it could change things for the broadcast Network Companies because they rely very heavily on retransmission fees from Cable Companies. Get around paying those fees, lots of others will try. Wolf, Supreme Court reporter for usa today. Appreciate your time. Guest anytime, greta. Host your thoughts on the Supreme Courts decision, upholding the ban on affirmative action. Ed, michigan, democratic caller. Caller hello. I think sotomayor is correct. There is still a huge problem with racism in the country, sexism. It might be getting worse since the election of obama. Flagsthese confederate protests and i am thinking are we still fighting a war . Let me go over the Supreme Court in makeup. Kennedy is a white guy, scully is a white guy, roberts is a white guy, alito is a white guy. Correct me is otsi suggest is thomas had l of opportunities with affirmative action that opened up his career. And when he was appointed to a government position, he was the beneficiary of affirmative action. Host have you read that somewhere . Caller he went to yale, didnt he . Didnt he go to Yale Law School . I believe that was part of affirmative action. That,i am not sure about but we take your point. Heres what Justice Sotomayor had to say in part of her 58 page dissent. Todays decision is this rates strand of our a equal protection. Gary, virginia, republican caller. Caller thank you. I agree with the first caller. The Supreme Court, if they had listened to cspan over the last year, they would have heard the president called the n word, a monkey, and so on. This guy, these people that call in and say israel is controlling our government. Askink they ought to Jonathan Pollard about that. He spent the last 27 years in prison. He was spying for israel. Host whats your point . How does this relate to affirmative action . Caller racism is still alive and well in this country. Listen to cspan. It is like you are living in a bubble. Actually, under a rock. Host ok, gary. On twitter. I agree for the reasons michigan made the change, however the wording does open the door for abuse. Affirmative action has a good side and a bad side but Public Places should be accessible to everyone. Agree with the dissenting justices, we cannot run from our history of discrimination. Mike, new york, democratic caller. Caller hi there. Host you are on the air. Caller this is a highly controversial loaded decision. Beirmative action should used on a case to case basis. Also, it generates i dont know. There is going to be doubt because of the section five gutted, this opens challenges by other states. People will be hurt by minorities and hurt by this decision. Journale wall street has this chart. Prior to tuesdays decision, 8 affirmative action or preferential treatment based on race at public colleges. Where and when the practice was ended. Ban on affirmative action and the years they did so. 1996 for california. Washington state in 1998, a ban on affirmative action. This is wall street journal this morning. Friday, republican caller. Caller good morning. This is layer upon layer. I have never seen so much attention given to a minority opinion. N a Supreme Court decision. It was 62. In the last 10 years, i had never heard so much Media Attention on the two minority opinions rather than the commonsense majority. Second, the majorities do have the right to make this law. Even if the majority did not do this and pass the amendment in affirmative action, you can discriminate against white people and males, i thought there was equal protection under the 13th, 14th, amanda. Sandra day oconnor sell differently and we had this mess. Affirmative action is jim crow in the reverse. The Supreme Court did proper. Affirmative action should be illegal. Host heres the attorney general out of michigan who brought the case before the Supreme Court. Arguing for the band. Bill schuette tweeted this. Upholdspreme Court Constitutional requirement for equal treatment. He has a lot to say, schuetteonduty is his handle. The minority leader in the house, nancy thpelosi, had this to say. Bill schuette, the attorney general out of michigan, also had this to say. Diversity onave our campus is achieved by constitutional means. That from the attorney general on twitter. Vanessa, rockville, maryland, democratic caller. Caller good morning. I definitely, i take issue with the recent ruling. Simply because im African American host we are listening. Caller i am africanamerican, i went to an elite school. I came from a community that was impoverished, really bad school. I dealt with it and i made the best of the situation. I went to class and i did not have my school do not offer ap classes. I knew i wanted to go to a Certain University that required a rigorous academic type of schedule. I had to make the best of what i had. The teachers were not the best type of teachers, there were a lot of issues with violence. What i am essentially saying is we do not start from an equal playing field. There are many minority students, black or latino, that are attending schools that i attended. Nevertheless, they have dreams of becoming doctors or attorneys. What do these students do . Should we act as if everyone is equal. I understand there are a huge segment, and new york covered this with a piece on appalachia, other impoverished white people who do not have access to opportunity. We have to address it from an economic standpoint. We also have to be honest and admit that race might be a social construct, but it still permeates our everyday life. Economics is important but race is also very important and how people are treated. I will end on this note, there are a lot of people calling in and stating we need to stop the screening, stop discriminating. We do. We need to judge people by the content of their character, this is true. Bys be honest, we judge appearances, we have stereotypes about who people are based on their skin color and the class they come from. Until we are all treated equally, we need to give people access to opportunities. About Justice Clarence thomas, i recently read the book by professor hill about Clarence Thomas. That stated he received affirmative action and attended yale, i will just say this Clarence Thomas is a bright man. I do believe, based on the school that he came from, there was some sort of preference yes. To him, there is nothing wrong with that. He did not have access to the same type of schooling as other people. He did benefit from affirmative action policies. It is hypocritical for him to sit on the bench and to act as if affirmative action played no role in his success. Host i will leave it there. Laura on twitter. Can voter bans on gay marriage be struck down but affirmative action bans be ok . Bob in philadelphia, independent. Caller good morning. Another point is that gay marriage. If people were hearing out sharpton on tv after this, he was basically saying we need this because the people of the impoverished areas have learning disabilities. I dont think it is a learning disability, it is an indictment on the Education System and the ch ine that tea lowincome areas. That is the core of it. Because they are not taught as well. They are not well educated because of our unionized teachers. They need charter schools. This, we need to raise education in impoverished areas. Host chuck, chicago, republican caller. Sorry, jay, missouri. Caller first, i am a black man. I am a 20 year navy veteran. I came from an impoverished area called the vale in st. Louis, missouri. Even though i came from an impoverished area, i do not need the white mans handout. I refuse to be handcuffed to liberal politics because of affirmative action or any other program that handcuffed black people to white, liberal politics. Host ok, chuck, chicago, republican. Youre on the air. Caller yes. Host good morning, go ahead with your comment. Im going to move onto beverly in north carolina, democratic caller. Caller hi, how are you. What can i say, i agree with the first caller. This is typical of the Supreme Court decisions recently. It is usually 63 with the same attendance. Most of their views are mostly bigoted. We have one black judge who always imitates the decisions of scalia. That says a lot about him. He never says a word, he just says ok, ok, this is ok with me. The way i am looking at america now there are two things that are very important to them. Just money and bigotry. I dont know where we are going, i do not see a good future for america. Thank you. Host derek in maryland, democratic caller. Your thoughts . Caller good morning. I agree with the previous caller. She is right on point. She talked about Clarence Thomas and he is a disgrace. I think about Thurgood Marshall and i think about him, Clarence Thomas this guy talks about affirmative action. He would not have even gone the education if it wasnt for forward action if it wasnt for affirmative action. Receivede vote romney in the last election was from white americans, specifically, we know who they are, 60 and over. Particularly white males. People, get out and vote. Vote, we will take care of this. Host the wall street journal has this picture. A few of the devastation. President obama survey the distraction brought by a mudslide that killed 41 people in Washington State last month. Mr. Obama mourned privately with families affected by the disaster. Heres a little bit from president obamas visit yesterday in Washington State. [video clip] there are families who have lost everything and it will be a difficult road ahead for them. That is what i wanted to come here. To let you know that the c