Editing Lani Guinier (section)

==Civil rights theories==
===Alternative voting systems===
In her publications, Guinier suggested various strategies for strengthening minority groups' voting power, and rectifying what she characterized as an unfair [[voting system]], not just for racial minorities, but for all numerical minority groups, including [[fundamentalist Christians]], the [[Amish]], or, in states such as Alabama, [[United States Democratic Party|Democrats]]. Guinier also stated that she did not advocate for any single procedural rule, but rather that all alternatives should be considered in the context of litigation ''"after'' the court finds a legal violation."<ref>(1994:14)</ref>

Some of the ideas she considered are:
*[[cumulative voting]], a system in which each voter has "the same number of votes as there are seats or options to vote for, and they can then distribute their votes in any combination to reflect their preferences"—a system often used on corporate boards in 30 states, as well as by school boards and county commissions
*multi-member "superdistricts," a strategy that "modifies winner-take-all majority rule to require that something more than a bare majority of voters must approve or concur before action is taken."

Guinier's idea of [[cumulative voting]] was taken up by [[Roslyn Fuller]] as a potential way of protecting minority rights without compromising [[One Man, One Vote]] principles.<ref>{{cite book |last=Fuller |first=Roslyn |title=Beasts and Gods: How Democracy Changed its Meaning and Lost its Purpose|date=November 15, 2015 |publisher=Zed Books |isbn=9781783605422}}</ref>

===Revising affirmative action===
From 2001 until her death, Guinier was active in civil rights in higher education, coining the term "confirmative action" to reconceptualize issues of diversity, fairness, and [[affirmative action]].  The process of confirmative action, she said, "ties diversity to the admissions criteria for all students, whatever their race, gender, or ethnic background&mdash;including people of color, working-class whites, and even children of privilege."<ref>Guinier (2001), [http://minerscanary.org/mainart/highered.shtml "Colleges Should Take 'Confirmative Action' in Admissions"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020628190009/http://minerscanary.org/mainart/highered.shtml |date=June 28, 2002 }}, ''Chronicle of Higher Education''. Retrieved on February 28, 2011.</ref>

Because public and private institutions of higher learning are almost all to some extent publicly funded (i.e., federal [[student loan]]s and research grants), Guinier argued that the nation has a vested interest in seeing that all students have access to higher education and that these graduates "contribute as leaders in our democratic polity." By linking diversity to merit, Guinier argued that preferential treatment of minority students "confirms the public character and democratic missions of higher-education institutions. Diversity becomes relevant not only to the college's admissions process but also to its students' educational experiences and to what its graduates actually contribute to American society."<ref>Guinier (2001), [http://minerscanary.org/mainart/highered.shtml "Colleges Should Take 'Confirmative Action' in Admissions"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020628190009/http://minerscanary.org/mainart/highered.shtml |date=June 28, 2002 }}, ''Chronicle of Higher Education''. Retrieved on December 9, 2008.</ref>

==="Political race"===
Developing a concept of "political race," Guinier argued that if viewed as a resource from which to develop social critique, attention to exclusions based on race had the potential to produce broad and democratizing effects.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Woliver|first=Laura R.|date=November 1, 2002|title=The Miner's Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy. Lani Guinier, Gerald Torres|url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/jop.64.4.1520093|journal=The Journal of Politics|volume=64|issue=4|pages=1244–1246|doi=10.1086/jop.64.4.1520093|issn=0022-3816}}</ref><ref name=":5" /> In ''The Miner's Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy'' ([[Harvard University Press]], 2002), Guinier and co-author Gerald Torres used the analogy of racial minorities as the canary in the coal mine, alerting others to risks in the environment.<ref name=":5">{{Cite journal|last=Balfour|first=Lawrie|date=2003|title=Race as a Resource - Lani Guinier and Gerald Torres: The Miner's Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002. P.392. $27.95.)|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/review-of-politics/article/abs/race-as-a-resource-lani-guinier-and-gerald-torres-the-miners-canary-enlisting-race-resisting-power-transforming-democracy-cambridge-ma-harvard-university-press-2002-p392-2795/49C8297E46C57E8D4C7292AD0FCC4CC4|journal=The Review of Politics|language=en|volume=65|issue=2|pages=307–308|doi=10.1017/S0034670500050105|s2cid=144584585|issn=1748-6858}}</ref> As one [[The New York Times|''New York Times'']] review put it, they argue for "reforms based on initiatives that are begun by minority groups but move beyond racial issues because they address the needs of other disadvantaged groups."<ref name="miner" /> One examplar Torres and Guinier cite is the way that ''[[Hopwood v. Texas]]'', an anti-affirmative action lawsuit, ultimately inspired reform that enlarged college access for all Texas students following minority activists' research on admissions. They found that the majority of admissions to the state's top colleges came from a handful of the state's high schools, prompting a reform that required the colleges to admit the top 10 percent of all high schools. The ''Times'' review concluded, "The goal of reaching such truly evenhanded solutions is what this book generously holds out."<ref name="miner">{{Cite news|last=Boyer|first=Allen D.|date=April 21, 2002|title=Books in Brief: 'The Miner's Canary'|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/21/books/review/books-in-brief-the-miners-canary.html|access-date=January 8, 2022|issn=0362-4331}}</ref>