Lower Court Holding
Decision of the Tenth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals
In his concurring opinion in Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena (1995), Justice Scalia succinctly articulated this Nation’s guiding aspiration: "In the eyes of government, we are just one race here. It is American." Until that future day when national aspiration and national reality converge, the Court has made clear that under certain circumstances the Federal Government may use race-conscious means to remedy the effects of historical and present-day racial discrimination. Inherently, we resolve whether the two branches of the government — the Legislative and the Executive — that have chosen to hasten that future day have met the constitutional standards…
