I finished editing the entirety of Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard. You can download it here: https://reason.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Students-for-Fair-Admission.pdf.
It took me about ten hours to edit the entire 237-page decision. (I would have finished sooner, but I was stuck in United Airlines purgatory for much of the day.) The edited version is 57 pages. I realize this cut is probably far too long for a single-class session.
I need to give some serious thought to how to cover affirmative action. For starters, I think I would reduce the coverage of Grutter and Gratz. Fisher I and II probably fall out as well. In one class, I could reasonably cover the Chief Justice's majority opinion and Justice Sotomayor's dissent. Justice Gorsuch focuses at some length on the statutory issue, which is not really germane to a ConLaw class, so I would probably skip it. And Justice Kavanaugh's concurrence repeats the 25-year theme over and over and over and over again. I would skip that as well. Justice Thomas's concurrence–especially the originalist defense of the color-blind Constitution–would make more sense in the chapter on the Reconstruction Amendments, after Plessy. I know that Justice Jackson's dissent will win plaudits from progressives, but there is very little actual law in it. Her entire dissent may be suited for a seminar on race in the law, but only a short excerpt would be needed for a 1L class.
I will have much more to say about this case. And I'm way behind. I have lots of thoughts on Mallory. And I didn't even get to read Groff or Counterman yet. Stay tuned.
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