Affirmative Action

The blog “What’s the issue?!” is dealing with issues in today’s world. There are many controversial tops in the world from health to gun control. The one controversial top I will focus on is affirmative action. Affirmative action is a “program designed to increase minority participation in some institution by taking positive steps to appoint more minority-group members.” Affirmative action has taken in many places like schools, businesses, labor unions and government agencies. President Lyndon Johnson’s speech in 1965 gave forth the motion of affirmative action to achieve equal opportunities in fields such as employment and higher education. These opportunities were meant to break down barriers and level the playing field. This was meant to make sure everyone is given an equal break.

In some cases, this would create a certain percentage of different ethnicities in their facilities. For example, some college are required to have a certain percentage of students to be a different ethnicity. In the recent years since 1965, there has been an increase in different ethnic students who were enrolled in a 2-or-4 year college. In some aspect, affirmative action could be a positive program because ten percent of companies have no women working in their companies.

Affirmative Action has been a great help for many people but at the same time doomed others. For example, some companies would give an opportunity to a minority employee, and the company would set up the employee for failure. The glass ceiling is also a term that comes up when talking about affirmative action. The glass ceiling is when an employee is only allowed to move up to a certain point in their company. For example say an employee who is a minority is hired and starts by doing small tasks for individuals. Over the years, the same employee is promoted once or twice and is no longer allowed to move up in the company.  

Affirmative action has not only been a societal problem but has become a legal problem. To some individuals affirmative action is reverse discrimination. This means that there are non-minority people who feel are being overlooked in order to comply their percentage of minorities in their institution. For example, the 2003 court cases of Gutter v Bollinger and Gratz v Bollinger, Gutter believed to recipient of reverse discrimination. Gutter applied to the University of Michigan Law School and was denied. The law school did acknowledge it uses race as a factor in its admission.  In both cases it was established a decision of “a certain percentage of race cannot be used to admit minorities to college, but it can be a plus factor.” In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that Gutter’s Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

This case would, I suppose, lead to the 2014 court case, Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action. In this case the Supreme Court upheld Michigan’s constitutional amendment to ban affirmative action in admissions to state public universities. Michigan being one of the states banning affirmative action in higher education, Florida and California have done the same. As a result, both states have seen a major drop in enrollment of black and Hispanic students in colleges and universities that are most selective.

There are positives and negatives to affirmative action, a positive would be that those who start at a disadvantage can get a boost to succeed. Although some may feel as though they are faced with reverse discrimination, like Gutter. I feel that affirmative action is a great way to promote more diversity and give opportunities to those who may not have such a great starting point as others. Even though I feel this way, I know that it is wrong to have such an unjust manner of giving minorities opportunities. These opportunities should not be given to people based on their gender or race but those who are qualified for the position. 

http://www.civilrights.org/resources/civilrights101/affirmaction.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/16/us/appeals-panel-upholds-race-in-admissions-for-university.html?_r=0

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/23/us/supreme-court-michigan-affirmative-action-ban.html

http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/schuette-v-coalition-to-defend-affirmative-action/

Obama's Policy Agenda aimed to create social innovations and opportunities (Unit 5)

Technology enhances have altered social and economic problems by widening inequality. President Obama's agenda is directed to broaden Americans opportunities along with health care reform, education investments and an increase of the minimum wage.This may be reinforced  developing cost-effective government programs. In order to address social challenges of inadequate federal financing, they established the Social Innovation Fund.

The Obama administration proposed more than 80 million in its fiscal 2015 federal budget for programs. This money is to encourage policy innovations for work things like work force development, educational achievement and juvenile justice. There are funds that are being established for the improvement of social equality in states. The part of Obama's' Policy agenda is aimed to resolve some of the public policies that other technology has changed.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/14/equal-opportunity-and-social-innovation-obamas-policy-agenda/

Filibuster Suit (Unit 4)

The District Court dismissed a case on senate filibustering. The U.S. Court of appeals for the D.C. circuit affirmed that the standing decision. This was a result from the senate not being able to pass acts such as the
Dream Act and Disclose Act. The court lacked jurisdiction because the Senate was the one who established filibustering and was not able to make a decision on this case. This decision was also based with constitutional rights stated in the Speech and Debate Clause. The senate is going against their own decision of  allowing filibustering in the senate because there is not mention of filibustering in the constitution.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/04/15/futile-suit-against-filibuster-dismissed/

CIA in Trouble (Unit 4)

With Senator Dianna Feinstein on the panel to declassify pages of executive summaries, the CIA is under a lot of heat after suspicions of spying on congress. While using computers used by senate staffers, Senator Feinstein held the CIA for spying. The CIA is an independent regulatory agency, which the Department of Justice approved of such tactics in legal memos. Under the Freedom of Information Act (FIOA), congress is permitted to obtain legal documents and they discovered they had more valuable intelligence than they believed they had obtained.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/03/politics/senate-cia-report/index.html

Should Congress Set Rules of Tax Preparers? (Unit 4)

A push towards cleaning up the preparation business of taxes was advocated by the Obama administration. In the past few years, tax preparers have drained the U.S. Treasury and taxpayers and the Obama administration has asked Congress to pass a law that will permit the Internal Revenue Service to regulate preparers. In a successful court case, the U.S. Court Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that Congress did not give the IRS the power to require continued education and test taking on tax-return preparers. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives, a Republican who takes part in the Ways and Means Committee stated it is not in their interest to form such a law. Committee Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Dave Camps-R, said the IRS’s request is under appraisal. 

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-03-17/news/sns-rt-us-usa-tax-preparers-20140317_1_preparers-jeff-trinca-irs

Hillary in Race for Kentucky? (Unit 3)

(Jason DeCrow/AP)

Kentucky has been not been known to be a competitive state for presidential candidates to fight over, but recently has been an issue for hopeful presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton is a most favored delegate for the Democratic Party to run in 2016. Kentucky has eight electoral votes and has recently voted for republicans in elections, turning it recently into a red state. Although Kentuckians did not vote for Obama in the 2008 presidential primary, Kentuckians did vote in favor for Hillary Clinton.  Her husband, Bill Clinton won Kentucky in both his presidential, 1992 and reelection, 1996 elections with margins decreasing. There are more democrats registered in Kentucky than republicans, but that does not guarantee that a democrat will win the state of Kentucky in 2016. Although Obama did not win Kentucky in both the 2008 and 2012 elections, this should not dictate the results for Hillary Clinton if she does become the democratic nominee in the 2016 election. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/02/25/can-hillary-clinton-win-kentucky-in-2016/

For Democrats looking to post-Obama era, how populist a future? (Unit 2)

Photo byDan Balz and Philip Rucker

Democrats are now looking towards the future in deciding who will later become their new party leader. Their more moderate political views have not entirely changed their beliefs, only which they strive more towards innovation. Since Obama has taken office, it has raised a question whether the Democratic Party has altered their views to a more liberal standpoint.  A Gallup Poll surveying democrats demonstrated how liberalism has expanded among democrats in 14 years with an increase of 14 percent since 2000. In a poll, that ABC-News had people answer questions ranging from favorable or unfavorable impressions of certain candidates to which candidate they would vote for in the 2016 presidential election. The results showed that most of the surveyors would vote for Hilary Rodham Clinton, but astonishingly, the surveyors would think of themselves as an independent. This kind of surprises me since I would not have had considered some of Americans to be independent but as either democrats or republicans. In the end, the Democratic Party is unsure of whom their next leader will be but I would strongly agree to have Hilary Rodham Clinton be the next democratic leader. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/for-democrats-looking-to-post-obama-era-how-populist-a-future/2014/02/15/8204b4bc-95c4-11e3-8461-8a24c7bf0653_story.html#