![]() Justice O’Connor has been influential-and again the fifth vote-in several cases in recent years addressing Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits sex discrimination in schools that receive federal funds. “Effective participation by members of all racial and ethnic groups in the civic life of our nation is essential if the dream of one nation, indivisible, is to be realized,” she wrote in Grutter. Again, Justice O’Connor was the pivotal vote in the 5-4 decisions as she endorsed the diversity rationale for affirmative action. Together, the rulings upheld the consideration of race in higher education admissions as long as the process involves individualized review of applicants. Bollinger, a pair of cases dealing with the University of Michigan’s consideration of race in its undergraduate and law school admissions, decided in July 2003, Justice O’Connor wrote the majority opinion in Grutter and joined the majority in Gratz. Her concurring opinion cast the court’s upholding of the voucher program as not “a dramatic break from the past.” Simmons-Harris, she was the fifth vote in the 2002 decision that upheld the inclusion of religious schools in the state of Ohio’s school voucher program for Cleveland children. On many other important education cases, Justice O’Connor was indeed the swing vote for a narrow majority. “That framing of how the First Amendment ought to work in public schools,” he said, “really gives guidance on many issues that administrators and teachers struggle with.” Her distinction between government speech about religion, which cannot be an endorsement, and protected private or student speech is “very helpful … for anyone in public education,” said Mr. In a plurality opinion in Mergens, Justice O’Connor wrote: “There is a crucial difference between government speech endorsing religion, which the establishment clause forbids, and private speech endorsing religion, which the free-speech and free-exercise clauses protect.” Mergens, in which an 8-1 majority concluded that the 1984 federal Equal Access Act, which was intended to open public high schools to student prayer groups, did not violate the First Amendment’s prohibition against a government establishment of religion. Justice O’Connor often relied on the facts of a case to steer other justices toward the court’s philosophical midstream, and she also laid out issues in practical ways for educators.Īn example is the court’s 1990 decision in Board of Education of the Westside Community Schools v. “Generally, she sided with the state sovereignty over federal power and with the individual over government power of any type,” Mr. ![]() Clint Bolick, the president and general counsel of the Alliance for School Choice, a Phoenix-based organization that pushes for school voucher programs nationally, said that Justice O’Connor was a “consensus builder” who nonetheless took principled positions on federalism and liberty. ![]()
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