Friedman's March 27 ruling in Barbara Grutter v. the University of Michigan Law School is in contradiction to an earlier decision by U.S. District Judge Patrick Duggan in a nearly identical suit filed against the University of Michigan's College of Literature, Science and the Arts. Duggan ruled that an undergraduate admissions policy similar to the one used by the law school is legal. These contradictory interpretations of the law increase the likelihood that these cases will go before the U.S. Supreme Court.

University officials immediately announced their intention to file an appeal. "We believe Judge Friedman's decision is wrong and flies in the face of over 20 years of U.S. Supreme Court law," said Liz Barry, the university's deputy counsel. "The ruling is contrary to every selective university in the country." University of Michigan lawyers also filed a motion to put on hold an injunction issued by Judge Friedman that bars the law school from using race as a factor in its admissions process. The injunction comes in the midst of the school's admission season, forcing the school to stop extending acceptances to prospective students for the coming semester.

Reaction from the student body was swift. Sophomore Agnes Aleobua addressed a rally of about 100 students after Friedman issued his ruling. "Students on this campus are outraged by this decision and we will not accept it," she said. "Diversity is a good thing for everyone. Everyone on this campus benefits from it."

Reverend Jesse Jackson was the featured speaker at a March 29 campus rally attended by hundreds of students. Jackson encouraged students to fight the ruling and called on them to join a national march in Washington, planned for October, and a national conference on affirmative action to be held on the University of Michigan's Ann Arbor campus in April or May.

White students filed two lawsuits in 1997, one against the law school and the other against the undergraduate College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. Both lawsuits claim that minority students with lower qualifications were accepted at the school instead of the white applicants. The Center for Individual Rights, which successfully argued against affirmative action at the University of Texas law school in 1996, represented the white students. The university defended 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.

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. Another lawsuit challenging the University of Georgia's affirmative action program is pending before the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The trial in the suit against the law school attracted national attention. For the first time students supporting affirmative action were allowed to present their case in the courtroom. This group of "defendant-intervenors" included current University of Michigan law students and prospective applicants, as well as students from schools in Texas and California, who described the difficulties they face in states where affirmative action programs have been declared unconstitutional.

The students felt that the university's own defense solely on the basis of diversity would not address the importance of affirmative action as a remedy to past and present discrimination.

The students' testimony, however, appeared to have little effect on the judge. In his opinion, Friedman recognized the "tragic" history of racial discrimination in the United States, as well as its lingering societal effects, but suggested it is not the place of the school to remedy this. Friedman admitted that there might be a dramatic drop in minority enrollment on campus without the current admissions policy. He expressed the "hope" that this would not occur. "The effects of general, societal discrimination cannot constitutionally be remedied by race-conscious decision-making," wrote the judge.

Erika Dowdell, a junior, said in response: "There is no excuse for ignoring racism and segregation." Most students interviewed by the press said they were in favor of affirmative action. Matt Nolan, president of the Michigan Student Assembly, the student government, said the group will continue to support affirmative action.

Miranda Massie, attorney for the student intervenors, told the Detroit Free Press, "It's an opinion for resegregation that will intensify existing unfairness and inequality for Black people and other minorities seeking access to higher education."

The university argued that maintaining racial diversity is a "compelling" state interest. Judge Friedman disagreed, declaring that the school's 1992 admission policy violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The December ruling by Judge Duggan, however, said Michigan's practice of giving an edge to African American, Hispanic, and Native American applicants--as it does to children of alumni, scholarship athletes, and others--is constitutional.

Last fall's entering class at the University of Michigan Law school, one of the nation's most competitive, was about 85 percent white and Asian and 15 percent Black and Hispanic.

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