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The Political Significance of Legal Ambiguity: The Case of Affirmative Action

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Keith J. Bybee
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Abstract

During the past 20 years, the American politics of race has been characterized by fundamental disagreements over the legitimacy of racial preferences. I trace the development of these disagreements within the Supreme Court's jurisprudence of affirmative action. I argue that the content and endurance of the Court's ambiguous jurisprudence stems from the particular politics of constitutional adjudication. More specifically, I argue that the overarching task of the modern Court is to justify its actions against a baseline of interest-group politics. The uncertain logic of affirmative action creates a position for the Court within the group process, meeting the judicial challenge of self-justification even as it leaves the ultimate validity of racial preferences open to question.

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Articles
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , 2000 , pp. 263 - 290
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 by the Law and Society Association

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Footnotes

I wish to thank Jill Frank, Susan Silbey, and several anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments. I presented earlier versions of this article to the Yale Political Theory Workshop, the Law and Semiotics Roundtable, and the Boston-Amherst Legal Studies Group (BALS). I am grateful for the helpful suggestions I received from each of these audiences. Finally, I would like to thank Richard S. Lee for providing excellent research assistance.

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