Students have scored a victory by winning the right to present, independent from the university administration, their reasons for opposing moves to eliminate affirmative action programs in the trial of Barbara Gutter v. Lee Bollinger et al. The suit, which opened in U.S. District Court in Detroit January 16, challenges the university's affirmative action policies.

Joining the University of Michigan students at the Martin Luther King Day march and rally were two busloads of high school students from Detroit. As the demonstrators marched down the middle of the street, chanting "Equal Quality Education, We won't take resegregation," and "They say Jim Crow, We say hell no!" many of the high school students broke away to walk up to storefront windows and wave their hand-lettered signs enthusiastically at the customers inside.

Metse Marang, a University of Michigan sophomore and former student at Detroit's Cass Tech, one of the participating high schools, said she came to the demonstration to "show people that students do care about what's going on and to show other students they need to be involved. Affirmative action is still necessary in this society." Marang added, "We have to address the social inequalities that exist in K through 12 education in cities like Detroit. Blacks and Latinos get underfunded schooling and there is a lack of resources at the Detroit public schools."

The Washington, D.C.–based Center for Individual Rights (CIR), which successfully argued against affirmative action at the University of Texas law school in 1996, is representing several students who are white in the lawsuits. Filed in 1997, one suit is against the Law School and the other against the undergraduate College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. Both claim minority students with lower qualifications were accepted at the school instead of the white applicants.

The university is defending its affirmative action policies by arguing that diversity is necessary for students to get a good education. On December 13, the U.S. District Court ruled without a trial to uphold the university's inclusion of race among criteria for undergraduate admissions. The trial that began on January 16 is the one pertaining to the Law School.

For the first time, students supporting affirmative action will be allowed to present their case in the courtroom. This group of "defendant-intervenors" includes current University of Michigan law students and prospective applicants, as well as students from schools in Texas and California, who will describe the difficulties they face in states where affirmative action programs have been declared unconstitutional.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled in favor of the students who felt that the university's own defense solely on the basis of diversity would not address the importance of affirmative action as a remedy for past and present discrimination.

The ruling marks the first time the courts have allowed minority advocates to represent themselves directly in an affirmative action case. For the students to be permitted into the case, they had to prove that the university, as a defendant, would not adequately represent their stake in the case's outcome.

Miranda Massie, one of the lawyers representing the students, applauded the decision to allow their testimony. She pointed out, "It has been activism by students--always--that has been responsible for the expansion of opportunity at the University of Michigan.... It has never been the university acting on its own. The students' success is of historic significance because the case is at the center of a national student movement that has the capacity to change the social context of affirmative action."

The General Motors Corp. also filed a brief supporting the University of Michigan's minority admissions programs. About 23 percent of GM's 193,000 U.S. employees are minorities.

In an article in The Michigan Daily, the University of Michigan student newspaper, Massie credited student activism for swinging public opinion to the side of affirmative action. When the suits were initially filed, she said, it seemed like CIR would prevail. Now the "tide is starting to turn and that is largely due to the students on the U of M campus."

According to the Detroit Free Press, of the 38,000 graduates and undergraduates enrolled at the university in the fall semester of 2000, 13 percent were "under-represented minorities, including 7.8 percent Black, 4.3 percent Hispanic, and 0.6 percent Native American. The class of 2000 at the law school is 367 students, 28 percent of whom are minorities.

In addition to the activities on campus, students were encouraged to attend as much of the trial as possible to show their continuing support for affirmative action. About 25 people picketed outside the courtroom on the morning of the trial's opening day. The courtroom was so full of spectators that people had to rotate in and out to give everyone a chance to view the proceedings.

Lee Bollinger, president of the University of Michigan, was quoted in The Michigan Daily saying this "could be the first step in a long journey culminating in a U.S. Supreme Court decision on the fate of affirmative action in higher education." In 1996 the University of Texas eliminated affirmative action, and the passage of Proposition 209 in California ended the use of race as a factor for admissions in that state's university system. A similar referendum in the state of Washington in 1998 also restricted the use of race as a factor in public institutions.

Students plan to continue organizing protests throughout the trial, which is expected to last about three weeks.

Ellen Berman is a member of United Auto Workers Local 157.  
 
 
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