In November 2013, the APPLE (America Promotes Public Leadership in Education) Act will be passed by congress. The APPLE Act is based on reverse discrimination or in other words an affirmative action. Reverse discrimination is when a policy or object is favoring the treatment of minority racial students over the majority students through the affirmative action programs which will have an unpleasant effect on the majority students. The APPLE Act calls for an affirmative action admissions policy, which basically means that universities will need to factor in a potential student’s race or ethnicity. However, factoring in the race or ethnicity, the admissions policy will favor students that are the minority with the intention of accomplishing a multi-racial student body to benefit all students’ education. This Act will benefit all students because the students will be able to experience college life with different cultures or ethnicities. Unfortunately the state’s universities, that don’t accept the policy before October 1, 2014, will discontinue receiving federal funding for various programs; such as higher education programs or K-12 programs.

Congress does have the power to make laws however; congress did not take into consideration the fact that states do have their own constitutions. Michigan, California, and Nebraska have all adopted their own civil rights initiative. The civil rights initiative prohibits all government agencies and institutions from giving preferential treatment to individuals based on their race and gender. With that being said in order to follow the federal constitution the states would be force to violate their own constitutions. Although the state would be forced to disobey their own individual constitutions, the state’s universities would continue to receive federal money. It is understandable that the U.S. Constitution must be put ahead of Federal Constitution, but is it right? I do not think it is because some states have been through cases where a student is suing a school or program because of affirmative action. The proof remains in two cases Grutter v Bollinger and Bakke v California. In Bakke v California, Allan Bakke sued regents of the University of California for using race as one factor in the admissions process. In that particular case, the Supreme Court ruled using race as the only factor in determining acceptance into a program is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court also said the University of California’s special admissions program was invalid but the court did not ban the school from considering race as one factor among many factors. In Grutter v Bollinger, Barbara Grutter challenged regents of University of Michigan Law School for using race as a factor in the admissions process. However the case was lost because Justice O'Connor concluded that race was not the only factor determining the admission into the school. If the Universities were to accept the new policy it would be okay because the Act is constitutional as long as the universities are accepting because of they want to have the students benefit from the diversity.

Teresa Talkative was punished for putting offensive posts on her “Facebook Wall” about various minority groups due to the fact that she was going to have a lesser chance in getting into a college or university because of the APPLE Act. The First Amendment protects freedom of speech from punishment by the government. Teresa’s high school is a public high school that is run by the federal government. In other words her principal was representing the whole school, which is run by the government. When her principal punished her for posting the offensive posts he was violating her First Amendment right. Therefore she cannot be punished for putting the offensive posts on her “Facebook Wall,” whether or not other people’s opinions disagree with the law, but the law is the law. Teresa