Affirmative Action in Education

For three decades, the Supreme Court’s interpretations of constitutional principles and federal statutes have played a vital role in protecting the rights of women to privacy, to equal protection of the laws, to basic health and safety, and to freedom from discrimination in the workplace and in school. But beginning in 2006, during the first full term after Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito were confirmed, the newly constituted Court handed down decisions that reversed decades of precedent and that dramatically cut back women’s hard won legal rights. At this point in time, key legal protections upon which women have relied for many years are gravely at risk.