by Dan Flynn

U.S. District Court Judge Bernard Friedman ruled on March 27 that using race as a factor in university admissions is unconstitutional. The ruling stemmed from a suit brought against the University of Michigan Law School by a white student who was denied admission despite outscoring many members of underrepresented groups who were admitted.

"There is no logic or evidence for assuming that all members of some racial groups are victims of adverse circumstances," Judge Friedman opined, "or conversely, that all members of other racial groups are beneficiaries of privilege."

University of Michigan students rallying a day after the decision labeled the judge's ruling for a race-neutral admissions system the product of a "segregationist, Jim Crow judge." Two days after the ruling was handed down, Jesse Jackson arrived in Ann Arbor and admonished an audience of hundreds, "Don't let the Confederates turn back the clock."

Administrators, who quickly announced that the school would appeal the ruling, focused on the decision's alleged threat to diversity. "We have documented with empirical evidence that racial and ethnic diversity enhance learning and the preparation of our students to work and participate as citizens in our [increasingly] diverse society," reacted University of Michigan Provost Nancy Cantor. "Judge Friedman's ruling interprets the constitution so narrowly as to ignore these profound implications for our democracy." School President Lee Bollinger added that he would seek a stay in the court order to "continue our efforts to offer an integrated legal education at Michigan" and "that pursuing educational excellence through diversity is a compelling governmental interest." Michigan Law School Dean Jeffrey Lehman disagreed with the ruling by proclaiming that "racial diversity is critical to a high-quality education."

But the judge argued that "a distinction should be drawn between viewpoint diversity and racial diversity." Judge Bernard Friedman pointed out, "the educational benefits of the former are clear, those of the latter less so. The connection between race and viewpoint is tenuous at best."

Barbara Grutter, a 47-year-old mother of two and plaintiff in the case, was rejected by the law school in 1997. A full 80% of minority students with similar grades and test scores as Mrs. Grutter were admitted, while only 8% of whites and Asians with similar scores were let in to the law school. Representing Grutter were lawyers from the Center for Individual Rights, a non-profit legal group that opposes racial preferences and quotas. Calls to eliminate the LSAT at the University of Michigan law school have already started to be made in the wake of the decision.

The decision stated, "the law school has made the current admissions policy practically indistinguishable from a quota system." The judge pointed out that by reserving at least 10% of spaces in entering classes for members of specific races, the University had protected those applicants from competition with applicants from non-favored groups.

The court ruled that by discriminating against Grutter, the University of Michigan denied the law school applicant her 14th Amendment right to equal protection under the law. The decision stated that the school also violated the 1964 Civil Rights Act's prohibition of racial discrimination by federally funded institutions.

The case effects colleges and universities in the Eastern District of Michigan and is at odds with another opinion handed down in December in that district court which held that the University of Michigan's current undergraduate system of using race as a factor in admissions was legal. An earlier decision held that a "grid" system that used one set of standards for certain minority applicants, and another for other races, was too much like a quota system and therefore against the law.

A 1997 decision in the 5th Circuit Court outlawed race-based preferences at public colleges and universities in Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. A 9th Circuit Court opinion found such practices to be legal in a case brought against the University of Washington. Another case brought against the University of Georgia in the 11th Circuit Court is pending.

Many fully expect the Supreme Court to take up the issue of racial preferences in admissions-something they haven't done since 1978's landmark Bakke case that outlawed quotas-because of the divergence of interpretations on the legality of race preferences among lower courts.