White House Brief Takes Cautious Stand in Race Case

The University of Michigan affirmative action case is not technically an employment case, but then neither was the Bakke decision involving admission to a state medical school. Nevertheless, since affirmative action is also a concept that arises in the employment law context, it was interesting to see the New York Times description of the difference between President Bush's public position and the actual brief filed by the Solicitor General. See White House Briefs Take Cautious Stand in Race Case. The most frequent debate of affirmative action in employment law was over how far Executive Order 11246, which regulates government contractors, could be pushed. For a long time now, the OFCCP which enforces the Executive Order, has backed off on trying to aggressively push affirmative action in terms of what were colloquially known as "quotas" and instead is primarily another agency enforcing more traditional discrimination theories.