By Bill Mears
CNN
WASHINGTON (CNN) --Over the years affirmative action has created its own competing
lexicons: Debate simmers over whether it is about diversity or discrimination;
inclusion or intolerance; fairness or fallacy.
| ADMISSIONS CRITERIA At the University of Michigan, minority undergraduate applicants to the College of Literature, Science and the Arts receive a 20-point bonus on the basis of race out of a 150-point system, which takes into consideration other criteria, including academics. Scholarship athletes, for example, get 20 points. Race is covered in a category called "other factors." The point system includes:
Alumni Essay Personal achievement Leadership and service Miscellaneous
Source: Center for Individual Rights |
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to issue a potentially landmark ruling this week involving a challenge to the University of Michigan's student-selection standards. It is arguably the most far-reaching case the court will decide this term.
At issue is whether race, as part of an affirmative action program, may be used as a factor in admissions to publicly funded institutions. Justices are deciding whether states have a "compelling interest" in promoting a diverse student body, or whether the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment forbids giving one group advantages over another.
The court has been considering two cases. One involves Michigan's undergraduate admissions program, the other affects its law school.
The Bush administration has said it opposes the university's admissions policy, while dozens of top corporations are among the school's supporters.
Supporters of each side have suggested outcomes -- falling minority college enrollment should the justices rule in the plaintiffs' favor, or the approval of a straight quota system should Michigan prevail.
But the outcome for a decision favoring Michigan or the plaintiffs could have various effects.
"This is not a two-possibility outcome, and we'll just have to wait to see the opinion," said Gail Heriot, a law professor at the University of San Diego School of Law. "There is a whole range of possibilities."
The strength of the opinion -- whether it is dissented by a narrow or wide margin -- can be just as critical as the decision itself, Heriot said.
Crux of the cases
Two white women are at the center of the cases. Jennifer Gratz was a top high
school student in suburban Detroit in 1995, when Michigan rejected her application.
Barbara Grutter, a 49-year-old mother of two, ran her own consulting business.
Michigan's prestigious law school rejected her application in 1997.
The university acknowledges it uses race as a factor in admissions, relying on a complicated point scale to rate applicants. Grades and academics are most important, but members of "under-represented" racial and ethic minority groups receive extra points, as do children of alumni, athletes and men enrolling in nursing programs. Gratz's lawyers call the points granted for race a "super bonus," equivalent to a full grade point on a student's GPA.
The school's undergraduate program receives 25,000 applications each year and accepts 5,000. African-Americans comprise about 9 percent of this year's freshman class, Latinos 6 percent and Native Americans about 2 percent.
The University of Michigan admission policy has been in place more than a decade.
"We educate a well-prepared, diverse work force," university President Mary Sue Coleman said. "The students who learn in diverse classrooms know how to take that cross-cultural understanding into America's industries."
Designed to right a wrong
The justices are aware of the attention surrounding the case. The court received
a record number of supporting briefs, totaling in the hundreds.
Many court observers say the justices sense the time is right to re-examine an unresolved issue that has been percolating for a generation.
"These represent the most significant civil rights cases the Supreme Court will have decided in the last quarter-century," said Ted Shaw, NAACP associate counsel. "This issue is nothing less than whether the doors of opportunity remain open for students of color."
Affirmative action programs were created to correct racial and cultural discrimination, dating from the days of slavery and public segregation. Advocates on both sides agree that the initiatives have proven controversial, and enforcement has been often been random and confusing.
One reason: the Supreme Court's ambiguous ruling in the 1978 Bakke case, the last time the court addressed affirmative action in public universities. The court at the time ruled the University of California at Davis could not hold a quota of places for minorities. The late Justice Lewis Powell wrote in the case, "The goal of achieving a diverse student body is sufficiently compelling to justify consideration of race ... under some circumstances."
Since then, federal courts have offered conflicting rulings on the constitutionality of affirmative action. In legal briefs filed with the court, lawyers from both sides argued that it is time for the justices to give a clear, definitive ruling.
The cases are Grutter v. Bollinger (case No. 02-0241) involving the University
of Michigan's law school; and Gratz v. Bollinger (No. 02-0516) involving the
undergraduate program.
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