The introductory section of the paper could lay out the broader developments . The thesis paragraph will contain the exact question that I want to focus on. So, that may be “how has race-based affirmative action in higher education changed since Bakke and where does it seem to be headed in the future?” A normative corollary to that is “is the state of affirmative action today good, bad, or a bit of both for racial equality?” The rest of the paper then might be a tour through the cases since Bakke (if you go this route, you will find that the Court’s justification for why affirmative action is acceptable and how it must be limited do change a lot from the 70s to today).
Here is a syllabus with some nice demarcations. You can see there are things to read on the history of affirmative action, a list of relevant Supreme Court cases, and more here.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qay4VC-bPoZ6ZsUbfaE1uAa1FqZ7jqarXqrSac3lKTY/edit
