U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer told a conference in Hawaii that he and his fellow justices struggle so much with affirmative action cases because the nation holds two deeply ingrained but opposing views on the topic, according to this report in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.
I noted in this post the other day that Justice Breyer planned to attend the symposium at the University of Hawaii law school on the Kamehameha Schools’ policy of giving admissions preferences to Native Hawaiians.
The Star-Bulletin notes that Justice Breyer “made it clear that he would not talk about the specifics of the Kamehameha case.” The school last year settled a lawsuit brought by a white student who had challenged the admissions policy, even though a federal appeals court had upheld it.
Instead, Justice Breyer spoke generally about the competing rationales for affirmative action and race-based policies in education, the paper said.
Meanwhile, The Honolulu Advertiser reports today that the Kamehameha Schools settled the lawsuit with the white student, identified in court papers only as John Doe, for $7 million.