A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that the University of Michigan is justified in considering race in undergraduate admissions because of the educational benefits of diversity on campus.
U.S. District Court Judge Patrick J. Duggan stressed, however, that his decision was based largely on his belief that the current admissions policies, adopted in 1999, were “narrowly tailored”’ to avoid outright, illegal discrimination against white students.
And he struck down, as unconstitutional, a set of admissions policies that the university had in place from 1995 to 1998, the period during which the lawsuit at hand was filed. He cautioned that, “in situations such as this, it is often a thin line that divides the permissible from the impermissible.”
Judge Duggan’s ruling was the second in as many weeks in which a federal court has declared that diversity is an adequate justification for race-conscious admissions policies. Last week, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit unanimously upheld an admissions policy formerly used by the University of Washington. (See an article from The Chronicle, December 15.) Although Michigan is not part of the Ninth Circuit, which covers nine Rocky Mountain and Pacific states, Judge Duggan cited the Ninth Circuit’s ruling heavily in his own opinion. Both rulings relied strongly on Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr.'s endorsement of affirmative action to promote campus diversity in the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 1978 decision, Regents of the University of California v. Bakke.
Many observers believe that either the Michigan or Washington case also eventually will reach the U.S. Supreme Court, especially given that both of the recent rulings directly conflict with a 1996 decision, by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, striking down race-conscious admissions policies formerly used by the University of Texas at Austin.
Curt A. Levey, director of legal and public affairs for the Center for Individual Rights, which represents the plaintiffs in all three cases, said he expects to appeal Judge Duggan’s refusal to strike down Michigan’s current admissions policies to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. The Michigan lawsuit was filed in 1997 on behalf of two students rejected from the chief undergraduate program at the university’s Ann Arbor campus.
Mr. Levey said he was pleased that Judge Duggan struck down as unconstitutional the admissions policies previously used by Michigan. In emphasizing that such policies need to be narrowly tailored, Wednesday’s ruling “brings us closer to the day when there will not be these racial preferences,” he said.
Mr. Levey also questioned the distinctions that Judge Duggan drew between the current and former admissions systems, saying he viewed the changes made by Michigan in 1998 as “a matter of wording and cosmetics.” He noted that the university itself had told the court that it had changed “only the mechanics, not the substance” of its policy.
Meanwhile, officials of the University of Michigan characterized the decision as a clear victory for their side.
“This is an unequivocal ruling in our favor,” Lee C. Bollinger, the university’s president, said in a written statement.
“The decision of the court today supports the admissions policies of virtually every selective university in the nation” and recognizes and affirms “the critical nature of diversity in higher education,” Mr. Bollinger said.
In his ruling, Judge Duggan said he was swayed by the extensive testimony about the educational benefits of diversity offered on the university’s behalf. Several scholars who support affirmative action had presented the court with what Judge Duggan called “solid evidence” showing that college students benefit from working in a racially diverse environment. Similar findings were presented in legal briefs submitted by the American Council on Education and a host of other national higher-education groups.
The lawyers for the plaintiffs had made little effort to rebut such research, but instead argued that the promotion of “diversity” was too amorphous and ill-defined a goal to be seen as a compelling government interest, and conceivably could be used to justify giving racial preferences in admissions forever. In rejecting such arguments, Judge Duggan said the university’s testimony had convinced him that “diversity in higher education, by its very nature, is a permanent and ongoing interest.”
Judge Duggan rejected the notion that the government should get out of the business of using affirmative action to promote diversity once any past racial discrimination has been remedied. That may explain why his decision largely ignored arguments made on behalf of several current and prospective students, all black or Hispanic, who had intervened in the case to try to defend the university’s affirmative-action policies as necessary remedies for its own past discrimination.
His ruling was nonetheless cheered by several prominent minority-rights advocacy groups, including the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and the American Civil Liberties Union, whose lawyers represented the intervenors in the case.
“Taken together, the decisions in Michigan and Washington show that the pendulum is swinging back in support of maintaining a diverse and integrated student body at our top universities,” said Kary Moss, executive director of the A.C.L.U. of Michigan, in a written statement.
Under the university’s current admissions system, which Wednesday’s decision upheld, applicants are rated on a 150-point scale and awarded 20 extra points if they are black, Hispanic, or Native American. In addition, applications for certain prospective students, including members of these minority groups, are sometimes “flagged” by admissions officers for special consideration.
Noting that the admissions system also gives special consideration to athletes, children of alumni, and students from low-income families or underrepresented sections of the state, Judge Duggan rejected the argument that the university operated a “two track” admissions system that treated black and Hispanic applicants differently from others.
Under the university’s previous admissions system, which Wednesday’s ruling struck down, admissions officers reserved seats for underrepresented minority members in the selection process. Also, in weeding out applicants early in the process, they used higher thresholds for white and Asian applicants, causing some students to be automatically excluded based solely on their race.
Judge Duggan said he could not accept a system in which race effectively was the sole criteria upon which some applicants were judged. He also called the practice of reserving places for minority applicants the functional equivalent of a quota system, which the federal courts have rejected as unconstitutional.
Background article from The Chronicle:
Issues in depth:
