AltMedia

On Affirmative Action, the Court Tackles a Deceptively Simple Question

You could say that the whole point of something like the Equal Protection Clause is to take race off the table,” Chief Justice John Roberts mused from the bench yesterday.

Many Americans believe just that—that the central command of the Equal Protection Clause is to produce a system where race doesn’t matter and we don’t have to think about it.

Many other Americans, however, believe that the point of the Clause—of the whole Fourteenth Amendment, in fact—is to bring about real equality, not as goal or a motto but as a fact. And if government has to take account of race to do that, so be it.

Both groups contain people of good will. And neither group can understand a word the other says.

The gap was on display Tuesday at the Supreme Court, when the justices heard argument in Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action. Schuette asks a deceptively simple question: Can the people of a state, by majority vote, make it unlawful for colleges and universities to use race-based affirmative action in admissions—which is perfectly legal under the Constitution?

The NBA’s Jason Collins has now become the first openly gay athlete playing in one of the four major sports in North America.

Read more behind the monumental ’Sports Illustrated’ cover story.

Riverfront Times, September 22, 2011 Art director: Tom Carlson, illustration: Tim Lane

The Dispossessed: May 2nd, 2012

Tiffany Shackelford, Executive Director of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia (AAN) and ONA DC organizer. Poynter highlights how alt-weeklies are finding new uses for their content online, with examples from across the country. 

Read more: How some alt-weeklies are innovating their way out of a crisis | Poynter.