-------- Forwarded Message -------- 

Subject: [BRC-NEWS] Michigan University Affirmative Action Battle
Date:    13-Aug-99 at 06:21   
From:    American Civil Liberties Union, INTERNET:infoclu.org

TO: INTERNET:brc-newsists.tao.ca 
     -------------------------------------------
http://www.aclu.org/news/1999/n081099a.html
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tuesday, August 10, 1999

Appeals Court Allows Rights Groups to Enter
Michigan University Affirmative Action Battle

DETROIT -- A federal appeals court ruled today that African American and
Latino high school students here have a "direct and substantial" interest
in the outcome of a lawsuit over the University of Michigan's affirmative
action policies and should be allowed to participate in a pending trial. 

The decision by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reverses a lower
court's October 1998 ruling excluding the students from the case. The
American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan and the national ACLU, members
of the legal coalition acting on the students' behalf, welcomed today's
ruling. 

"As the appeals court recognized, a ban on affirmative action in
University admissions directly threatens the chances that qualified
African American and Latino applicants will be admitted," said Michael J.
Steinberg, Legal Director of the ACLU of Michigan. 

Other coalition members are the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund,
the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and Citizens for
Affirmative Action's Preservation (based in Detroit). 

In the lawsuit, Gratz v. Bollinger, two white students are claiming that
the University of Michigan's admissions policy constitutes
"discrimination." Although the students claim to support equal
opportunity, the civil rights coalition members argue that with the
lawsuit they have, in fact, launched an all-out attack on one of the
fairest, most effective tools for ending discrimination. 

"The sad truth is that racial discrimination in America is not just a
thing of the past," Steinberg said. "The Constitution's Equal Protection
Clause does not bar universities from pursuing diversity." 

Indeed, he said, the simplest way to understand what is at stake in this
controversy is to examine the recent experiences of the University of
California and the University of Texas, where minority enrollment
plummeted when those schools' affirmative action plans were dismantled. 

The court found those numbers significant as well, noting that the "recent
experiences in California and Texas" leave "little room for doubt" that a
ban on affirmative action may result in "a substantial decline in the
enrollment of these students...if the University is precluded from
considering race as a factor in admissions." 

The University of Michigan is the state's flagship public institution of
higher education and a leader in promoting racial diversity. In seeking to
enter the case, the rights coalition argued that the University, faced
with internal and external institutional pressures, might not adequately
protect their clients' interests. They also argued that the University is
at less risk of harm than the students if it loses this case. 

The court agreed with that analysis as well. "We find persuasive their
argument that the University is unlikely to present evidence of past
discrimination by the University itself or of the disparate impact of some
current admissions criteria ...[.]," the court wrote. 

In issuing its ruling today, the court also granted a motion to intervene
in a concurrent case, Grutter v. Bollinger, brought against the University
of Michigan's law school. 

Gratz v. Bollinger, Civil Action No. 97-75321, will now likely move
forward to a trial under federal judge Patrick J. Duggan in the United
States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, where the case
was originally filed. 

Motions and briefs of proposed intervenors in Gratz v. Bollinger can be
found at: 

     First Amended Motion to Intervene
     http://www.aclu.org/court/gratz_motion_intervene.html

     Reply Memorandum of Proposed Intervenors Ebony Patterson et. al.
     http://www.aclu.org/court/gratz_reply_intervenors.html

     Plaintiff's Memorandum in Support of Motion to Intervene 
     http://www.aclu.org/court/gratzvbollingermemo.html

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Copyright (c) 1999 American Civil Liberties Union
-------------------------------------------------

-30-


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