Court upholds affirmative action

The Supreme Court announced its decision in Grutter v. Bollinger Monday, deeming the affirmative action admissions policies of University of Michigan School of Law to be within constitutional boundaries. \nThe final decision in the case was a close 5-4 vote. Daniel O. Conkle, professor at IU School of Law-Bloomington, explained that by looking at past cases with similar subject matter, the close split of this case was not hard to predict. However, he said it was never certain which side would take the slim majority. \nThe University of Michigan's diversity admissions policy, used by many graduate institutions, including the IU School of Law, follows the opinions of Justice Lewis Powell in the landmark affirmative action case of California Board of Regents v. Bakke. \nIn the Bakke case, the court deemed the use of a racial quota system in university admissions as unconstitutional. The University of California-Davis Medical School was reserving 16 out of 100 places to be filled by minority applicants, who would be judged against each other rather than against the white applicants. \nIU School of Law's admissions committee relies heavily on undergraduate grade point averages and LSAT scores. However, it also considers other factors, such as geography, viewpoint, undergraduate school and area of study, work and community service experience, participation in campus life, economic background, military service and race and ethnicity. The law school's admissions policy is an example of how higher education has followed the guidelines set by Powell's opinion in the Bakke case. \nIn the Bollinger case, Brown noticed that Justice O'Connor tended to echo Powell's opinion as a precedent, pointing out that although the policy implemented was unconstitutional, the goal of promoting campus diversity paralleled the concerns of the First Amendment. \n"The nation's future depends upon leaders trained through wide exposure to the ideas and mores of students as diverse as this nation," said Powell, from quotes used in the Bollinger case.\nHowever, he pointed out that "diversity" means more than race and ethnicity. "[Diversity] encompasses a far broader array of qualifications and characteristics of which racial or ethnic origin is but a single though important element," Powell said. \nAccording to Kevin Brown, IU-Bloomington professor of law, Powell's opinion stressed that admissions committees could take race and ethnicity into account, but the real importance lies in dealing with students as individuals. \nSomething that separates this case from Bakke is this time around, O'Connor was able to command a majority of opinion, whereas in the past case there were several different opinions; no one was able to agree entirely. \nIn Grutter v. Bollinger, Barbara Grutter, a white Michigan resident, applied to the University of Michigan Law School in 1996. She had a 3.8 grade point average and a 161 LSAT score. She eventually was rejected. In December 1997, she filed suit against the law school, claiming they discriminated against her on the basis of race, violating the 14th Amendment. Grutter claimed that minority students were given "a significantly greater chance of admission than students with similar credentials from disfavored racial groups" and that the law school "had no compelling interest to justify their use of race in the admissions process."\nThe case eventually went all the way to the Supreme Court. In February, IU filed an amicus brief, adding to a total of 90 such briefs filed. According to an article in Legal Times, the number of amicus briefs filed in this case was "spectacular." The purpose of an amicus brief is to allow a third party to call the court's attention to certain consequences of a decision, which the court might overlook or of which it might not fully comprehend the scope. IU's brief was but one of 74 filed that pointed to the constitutionality of affirmative action. \n"We believe strongly in the importance of diversity in the learning experience for our students," said IU Interim President Gerald Bepko in a press release issued at the same time as the filing of the amicus brief in February. "Race is only one of many factors that contribute to consideration of candidates for the IU-Bloomington School of Law, but if use of race in pursuit of diversity is determined unconstitutional, our ability to admit a student body that best meets our academic mission would be compromised." \nDennis Shields, the University of Michigan director of admissions when Grutter originally applied to the law school, testified that no exact percentages or quotas of minority students were stressed in admittance procedure but that during peak admissions time he would occasionally monitor the racial and ethnic composition of the class to ensure that a "critical mass" of underrepresented minorities would be achieved. \n"Critical mass" is not an exact number or percentage, but it is whatever it seems to take to ensure that members of minorities do not become "spokesperson of their race," Brown said. When the number of students in a particular minority reaches "critical mass," it means there are enough people around of a particular race that they can feel like individuals and express their individual opinion without feeling like everything they say or do is a representation of their race, Brown explained. \nBrown also pointed to another difference that O'Connor presented. \n"O'Connor helped emphasize American values of individualism. She resolved it in a very stateswoman-like way," he said.