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- Title
A LAWYER LOOKS AT CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE: WHY LEWIS F. POWELL JR. DIVORCED DIVERSITY FROM AFFIRMATIVE ACTION.
- Authors
WALKER, ANDERS
- Abstract
This Article reconstructs Lewis F. Powell Jr.'s thoughts on the civil rights movement by focusing on a series of littleknown speeches that he delivered in the 1960s lamenting the practice of civil disobedience endorsed by Martin Luther King Jr. Convinced that the law had done all it could for blacks, Powell took issue with King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail," impugning its invocation of civil disobedience and rejecting its calls for compensatory justice to make up for slavery and Jim Crow. Dismissive of reparations, Powell developed a separate basis for supporting diversity that hinged on distinguishing American pluralism from Soviet totalitarianism. Powell's reasons for defending diversity are worth recovering today, not least because courts continue to misinterpret his landmark opinion in Regents v. Bakke, confusing the use of diversity in higher education with the compensatory goals of affirmative action, a project that Powell rejected.
- Subjects
UNITED States; POWELL, Lewis F., 1907-1998; CIVIL disobedience; AFFIRMATIVE action programs; CULTURAL pluralism; LAWYER attitudes; LAWYERS; KING, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968; COMPENSATION (Law); REGENTS of the University of California v. Bakke; ACTIONS &; defenses (Law); TWENTIETH century; HISTORY; POLITICAL attitudes
- Publication
University of Colorado Law Review, 2015, Vol 86, Issue 4, p1229
- ISSN
0041-9516
- Publication type
Article