J Law Health. 2024;37(3):214-224.
In Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina, the Supreme Court ruled that affirmative action in university admissions, in which an applicant of a particular race or ethnicity receives a plus factor, is unconstitutional. This ruling was based on both the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This article argues that a more natural fit as the basis for constitutional analysis would be a different clause in the Fourteenth Amendment, the Privileges or Immunities Clause. In the article, a legal analysis based on the clause is applied to medical school admissions. Depending on whether a fundamental rights reading or an antidiscrimination (equality) reading of the clause is applied, opposite conclusions are reached on the constitutionality of affirmative action in medical school admissions. This analysis demonstrates why affirmative action in admissions--in this case medical school admissions, which directly affect the composition of the Nation's physician workforce--is a complex and difficult constitutional question.
在“学生争取公平录取诉哈佛学院和北卡罗来纳大学案”中，最高法院裁定，大学招生中的平权行动（即给予特定种族或族裔的申请人加分）违反宪法。这一裁决基于第十四修正案的平等保护条款和 1964 年《民权法案》第六篇。本文认为，作为宪法分析基础的一个更为自然的选择是第十四修正案中的另一个条款，即特权或豁免条款。本文将基于该条款的法律分析应用于医学院招生。根据对该条款的基本权利解读或反歧视（平等）解读，在医学院招生中平权行动的合宪性问题得出了截然相反的结论。这一分析表明，为什么招生中的平权行动——在这种情况下是医学院招生，这直接影响到全国医生劳动力的构成——是一个复杂而困难的宪法问题。
