The Two Bartlets
As Bartlet goes to Iowa for an uncontested primary, Toby pushes him to respond to a Republican candidate's support of a referendum that would ban affirmative action in college admissions (1) and then questions how Bartlet can veer from being strong to weak so easily. Josh is asked to convince an actor-friend to stop protesting the Navy bombing exercises off the coast of Vieques (2) and begins to break ground with Amy Gardner. Sam meets with a conspiracy theorist he first met on a "Big Block of Cheese Day" two years earlier, who now believes the United States is covering up aliens and UFOs (3) at Fort Knox.
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Affirmative Action (legal challenges, referenda, percentage-based plans) (last updated February 2, 2002) (back to top)
Affirmative action is an umbrella term for race-conscious programs that seek to attain a racial distribution within areas such as college admissions and government contracting closer to the racial distribution of the general population. Such programs were first enacted in the 1960s and 1970s in response to changes in the political and cultural environment, as well as demographic changes, and have been controversial from the beginning.
Since the mid-1990s, affirmative action has faced many legal and political challenges, most visibly in the area of college admissions. Federal courts across the country have issued contradictory decisions as to whether the benefits of diversity are enough to justify the use of affirmative action under the Constitution, and the Supreme Court is likely to take up an appropriate case (most likely, one of the cases currently underway involving the University of Michigan) within the next few years and decide the issue.
Politically, voters in California and Washington passed referenda in 1995 and 1998 banning the use of affirmative action, and state schools there have implemented new admissions policies such as percentage-based admissions and minority recruitment to attain the same goals as before through permissible means. The top state schools in these states saw a decline in black and Hispanic representation in their incoming classes immediately after these decisions, but have recovered somewhat since then. Florida was to have voted on a similar referendum in 2000 but Governor Jeb Bush banned affirmative action and proposed a percentage-based plan via executive order a year earlier.
The most important developments nationwide are these:
- Legal challenges have had conflicting results, but generally find affirmative action programs unconstitutional. Legal challenges are eroding the idea that the benefit of having a diverse student body can justify affirmative action admissions policies, which was established by Justice Louis Powell in deciding the Bakke case of 1978. Affirmative action policies are justified under the U.S. Constitution only when they address a "compelling government interest" and are "narrowly drawn" to meet that interest. Courts have rejected the idea that remedying society's past discrimination is sufficient justification, leaving only diversity, and they have come to dramatically different results in recent years as to whether even that is enough.
The first major decision striking down affirmative action in education was the 1996 Hopwood case in Texas. There, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals (covering Texas) ruled that diversity was not a compelling interest and that affirmative action could thus not be justified under the Constitution. A federal court in Georgia came to the same conclusion in a series of decisions in 1999 and 2000; this decision was upheld by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in August 2001 on more limited grounds (see Johnson v. Board of Regents of the University of Georgia), and the school then decided in November 2001 not to appeal the case any further.
On the other hand, other courts, such as the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in a case challenging the University of Washington and decided in November 2000 (Smith v. University of Washington), have upheld the use of affirmative action to promote diversity.
Cases involving the University of Michigan have resulted in some conflicting decisions. In a case involving the college and decided in December 2000 (Gratz v. Bollinger), Federal District Judge Patrick Duggan accepted diversity as sufficient justification for affirmative action but ruled that the University of Michigan's college admissions policies were not narrowly drawn from 1995 to 1998 and thus were unconstitutional; its policies from 1999 on were narrowly drawn and thus constitutional. A few months later, however, in a case involving the university's law school (Grutter v. Bollinger), Federal District Judge Bernard Friedman rejected diversity as a sufficient justification and thus ruled that the law school's admission policy was unconstitutional. Both cases have been appealed and were argued before the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in December 2001.
Although the United States Supreme Court is widely expected to reject diversity as sufficient justificiation, it has so far declined to review any appropriate cases for such a decision. It declined in May 3001 to review the University of Washington case, and it declined in June 2001 to review the University of Texas case. Since the University of Georgia has decided not to appeal the case any further, the only case left that the Supreme Court could use to decide the issue - if it actually wants to - would be one of the cases involving the University of Michigan.
- Referenda were successful in California and Washington. Some have turned to political measures to ban affirmative action in some states. On November 5, 1996, California voters passed by a margin of 54 to 46 percent an amendment to their state constitution (the California Rights Initiative, better known as Proposition 209) prohibiting discrimination or preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin. Two years later, voters in Washington state passed a similar measure (Proposition 200) with 58 percent of the vote. Florida voters were to have decided a similar referendum in 2000, but Governor Jeb Bush decided to eliminate affirmative action and implement new plans a year earlier. Houston voters rejected a referendum that would have eliminated affirmative action in city contracting and hiring (the measure did not apply to college admissions) in 1997 by 55 percent.
- Percentage plans are spreading. Reacting to the changing landscape for affirmative actions, state schools are beginning to adopt a percentage-based system wherein schools ignore SAT scores and simply accept the top students from each high school.
- Texas adopted a 10% version after the 1996 Hopwood decision, by which any student graduating in the top 10 percent of his or her high school graduating class would receive automatic admission to state schools, and all other students would be evaluated by many factors not including race; under this program, the number of black and Hispanic students at the University of Texas at Austin has slightly increased since 1996.
- California has seen a variety of new admissions policies and programs since the mid-1990s. In 1998, it also implemented a percentage-based program, the "eligibility in the local context" program, under which it would grant UC eligibility to the top four percent of students in each California high school. In July 2001, UC approved a program by which students between the top 4 and 12.5 percent in each California high school would also be admitted, as long as they completed a one-year transfer program at a community college first, but has delayed implementation of this program until more funding is secured.
- Florida Governor Jeb Bush issued an executive order banning the use of affirmative action and has proposed that the state adopt a 20-percent plan, and Florida's state schools in 2000 reported increases in minority enrollment throughout the system, with black enrollment increasing by 21 and 33 percent at Florida State University and the University of Florida, and Hispanic enrollment increasing by 24 and 19 percent at the same schools.
- Statistics. It has not been easy and not always successful, but many of those state schools which are adjusting to a post-affirmative action world are slowly managing to bring the numbers of black and Hispanic students back up to the levels they were at before recent developments. Schools have done this primarily through more active recruitment of minority applicants and special preparation programs designed to help students who may have done well at their high schools but are not fully ready for a competitive college. However, the best schools in the University of California system (Berkeley and UCLA) are still behind and their share of the student body is still lower than before.
The following graphs show how freshman enrollment (not admissions) has changed since the mid-1990s for some state schools that were affected by the changes in affirmative action and for which sufficient data was available on-line.
For more on affirmative action, go here.
Sources: Court opinions referenced above can generally be found via Findlaw.com. Other resources can be found via websites for the various state schools affected by the changing landscape of affirmative action. The University of Michigan collects information about its lawsuit here. The University of California system collects policy changes here, and admissions statistics are available here. The University of Texas has collected information about the Hopwood case here, and the latest report on the 10-percent admissions plan is here. The University of Washington maintains statistics here. The University of Georgia collects status updates on its admissions lawsuit here. Information about the One Florida Initiative is here. An April 2000 report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights on percentage-based plans in education is on-line here.
Vieques (last updated January 31, 2002) (back to top)
A small island within the territorial boundaries of Puerto Rico, Vieques Island has become a controversial site due to local opposition to the Navy's training exercises held there since World War II.
The exercises involve live and inert ordinance and have never been popular with local residents, but political opposition has built in recent years, particularly since a bombing accident in 1999 that resulted in a civilian's death. In 2000, President Bill Clinton authorized a referendum by which Puerto Ricans would vote to either have the Navy leave the island by May 2003 or to receive economic assistance in exchange for continued exercises. In June 2001, after months of highly public protests, the Bush administration announced it would halt all exercises in Vieques by May 2003 regardless of how such a referendum would come out.
In explaining the decision, Secretary of the Navy Gordon England told Congress that "training could have become untenable well before May of 2003, and well before any alternative method or site could be developed," and that by announcing plans to leave by May 2003, he hoped that the Navy could reduce tensions and refocus on finding suitable alternative sites for training by that time.
Still, many in Puerto Rico continued to call for an immediate halt to the Navy's bombing exercises, and Puerto Ricans voted strongly in favor of immediate withdrawal in a non-binding referendum held in July 2001.
Since World War II, the Navy has conducted training exercises at Vieques Island, where it maintains training facilities at an inner range and also maintains an ammunition facility. The Navy conducts training exercises about 180 days a year and owns about two-thirds of the island, mostly on its eastern and western ends. A Navy study said the facility is "critical for pre-deployment training and preparation" of Navy and Marine forces, and that it is the only site in the Atlantic that offers day and night capability, amphibious landing beaches and maneuver areas, low traffic airspace and deep water seaspace, such that "realistic combat training can be conducted in a combined and coordinated manner."
However, the training exercises have raised much anger from local residents. About 9,300 people live on the island, and many blame the exercises for preventing economic development and for causing health problems via the noise and environmental pollution left by used munitions. Some have also pointed to a higher cancer incidence rate on Vieques, though studies have not been conclusive.
A 1999 review panel established by Bill Clinton concluded that relations between the Navy and Puerto Rico had already reached "crisis proportions" even before the April 19, 1999 incident in which a Marine pilot misidentified his target, released two 500-pounds bombs, and thus killed a security guard and injured four others. According to the panel, "insensitivity has been the hallmark of the Navy's approach" to community relations, and the Navy had failed to live up to an agreement made with the Governor of Puerto Rico in 1983. In that agreement, the Navy promised to limit the use of live ordinance to an absolute minimum and to help obtain full employment for Vieques residents.
In recent years, Puerto Ricans opposed to the Navy's exercises have tried several ways to stop them. In April and May 2001, for example, 180 protesters, including Reverend Al Sharpton, were arrested for trespassing and many were found guilty and sentenced for time up to 90 days of prison.
They have also tried using the courts, though with little success. In January 2002, for example, Federal District Judge Gladys Kessler (District Court for the District of Columbia) dismissed a lawsuit which sought to stop the bombing on the basis of a federal anti-noise law; Kessler said that the federal law did not provide for civil lawsuits.
Accordingly, protesters have had their greatest successes in the political arena, though the results are not coming fast enough for some and these demands are becoming more subdued in the wake of the September 11 attacks. The Clinton and Bush administrations both took steps towards removing the Navy from Vieques, but not before 2003 and not before alternative sites providing "a equivalent or superior level of training" have been identified, the latter a requirement made into law by a defense spending bill enacted in December 2001.
If and when the Navy does leave, the property it owns on Vieques' eastern end (about 12,000 acres) will go to the Interior Department for use as a wilderness preserve. This future use was specified in the defense spending bill enacted in December 2001, but the bill was silent as to the disposition of the Navy's property on the western end (about 8,000 acres); such land will probably be transferred to the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
Sources: The October 1999 report by the Special Panel on Military Operations on Vieques, which was established by Bill Clinton in response to the April 19, 1999 incident, is available on-line via a Department of Defense press release, on-line here. The House of Representatives' Committee on Armed Services held a June 27, 2001 hearing on the decision to leave Vieques by May 2003; the transcript of that hearing is on-line here. District Judge Gladys Kessler's opinion in Puerto Rico v. Rumsfeld, in which she dismissed Puerto Rico's attempt to stop the exercises via the federal Noise Control Act of 1972, can be found via the District Court for the District of Columbia, on-line here. Raymond Hernandez, Vieques issue is put on hold in response to terrorism, New York Times, September 27, 2001.
UFOs (last updated August 2001) (back to top)
The United States government investigated unidentified flying objects (UFOs) for a period of 22 years beginning in the late 1940s. It has not officially conduced any investigations since 1969, though recent years have renewed interest in and brought forth new information about the United States' efforts here.
From 1947 to 1969, the Air Force investigated 12,618 reported sightings of unidentified flying objects. The vast majority of such sightings (11,917, or 94 percent) were found to be caused by "material objects (such as balloons, satellites and aircraft), immaterial objects (such as lightning, reflections and other natural phenomena), astronomical objects (such as stars, planets, the sun and the moon), weather conditions and hoaxes," according to a fact sheet prepared by the Air Force. Only 701 reported incidents, about 6 percent, went unexplained.
The Air Force conducted such investigations under Project Sign, which had its name changed to Project Grudge and finally Project Blue Book. The secretary of the Air Force announced the termination of this program on December 17, 1969, relying on a University of Colorado study that concluded that there was no evidence of any UFO threat to national security, or that any UFO was actually an extraterrestrial vehicle.
In 1977, President Jimmy Carter asked the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to look into the possibility of resuming UFO investigations. NASA decided that such investigation would be fruitless, and the federal government does not conduct regular investigations into UFOs at this time.
So what about Roswell?
In 1994, the Air Force issued a report concerning the supposed crash of a UFO in July 1947 at Roswell, New Mexico. Rather than a UFO, the Air Force reported that the crash was simply that of a research balloon that was part of the military project code-named MOGUL designed to determine whether the Soviet Union was testing nuclear devices.
Several newspapers, including the Roswell Daily Record, reported in July 1947 that the air force had captured a flying saucer on a local ranch. But those same newspapers then reported that Brigadier General Roger Ramey, Commander of the Eighth Air Force in Texas, had said that the debris had been determined to be a weather balloon. Ramey's press conference ended interest in the incident until the 1970s, when tabloid publications and various news media began accusing the government of covering up the discovery of an alien spaceship and passengers.
While releasing its report, the Air Force recognized that its report would do little to convince skeptics raised on decades of conspiracy theories and alleged re-enactments. "The Air Force efforts did not identify any indication that the 'Roswell incident' was any type of extraterrestrial event or that the Air Force has engaged in a 47 year conspiracy or 'cover-up' of information relating to it. Therefore, it is assumed that pro-UFO groups will strongly object to the attached report and denounce it as either shortsighted or a continuation of the 'cover-up' conspiracy. Nevertheless, the attached report is a good faith effort and the first time any agency of the government has positively responded officially to the ever-escalating claims surrounding the Roswell matter," Colonel Richard L. Weaver wrote in 1994.
Sources: Air Force, UFO Fact Sheet (1985), available on-line here. Colonel Richard L. Weaver, Report of Air Force Research Regarding the "Roswell Incident" (July 1994). Air Force documents are available on-line here.
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