Rejected
white law school applicant appeals reverse discrimination case to Supreme Court
Rejected
white law school applicant appeals reverse discrimination case to Supreme Court
ANNE GEARAN, Associated Press Writer
Friday, August 9, 2002 ©2002 Associated Press www.sfgate.com
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nearly a quarter-century after the Supreme Court ended racial quotas in university admissions, the court must decide whether to reopen the divisive question of what role, if any, race can play in a school's choice of students. A white woman who didn't get into law school asked the court Friday to make her case the one that settles the issue. Barbara Grutter claims she was denied admission at the University of Michigan because of her race. She had higher grades and test scores than some minority applicants who got in.
"At the most fundamental level, the question it raises is whether our nation's principles of equal protection and nondiscrimination mean the same thing for all races," her lawyers wrote in asking the justices to hear her appeal of a 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling. Grutter's case is one of a pair of closely watched cases involving slightly different race-conscious admissions policies at the University of Michigan. She lost her case before a divided federal appeals court in Cincinnati in May.
The court majority ruled that the Constitution allows tax-supported colleges and graduate schools to seek "a meaningful number" of minority students, so long as there is no fixed quota system. Building a diverse student body is a goal worthy of an admissions policy that takes race into account, a majority of the appellate court judges said. By that rationale, college admissions officers would have carte blanche to decide what diversity means, which racial groups should benefit from relaxed admissions standards and how much of a break those groups deserve, Grutter's lawyers wrote. "Enshrined as a compelling interest, diversity will instead give the nation its first permanent legal justification for racial classifications," they said.
"That justification, despite the language or label applied, will be one that is indistinguishable from an interest in simple racial balancing." The Supreme Court sent a mixed message in its last ruling on affirmative action in higher education admissions, in 1978. The case involved Allan Bakke, a white man rejected for admission to the University of California, Davis medical school while minorities with lower scores got in through a special program.
In that case, a five-justice majority struck down the state-sponsored school's admission program that used racial quotas. Justice Lewis F. Powell wrote separately that schools could still consider race, so long as they did not use quotas. Courts around the country have set contradictory rules since then. The 6th Circuit has not ruled on the second case concerning undergraduate admissions at Michigan, but that case, too, is expected to end up before the Supreme Court. Lawyers on both sides of the affirmative action debate have predicted the court will use the Michigan challenges to clarify the affirmative action issue.
Grutter applied in 1996, and was initially placed on Michigan's waiting list for admission in the fall of 1997. She was later rejected. If diversity, broadly defined, was the goal, then she should have gotten in, Grutter maintains. She was 43 when she applied, a businesswoman and mother, with experiences that would have set her apart from many of her younger classmates. "It was not a diversity issue, it was a race issue," she said in a telephone interview. The school's vice president and general counsel, Marvin Krislov, said the appeals court reached the right decision.
"If the Supreme Court decides to hear this case, we believe that we will prevail, and that the court will reaffirm that colleges and universities may consider race to achieve the educational benefits of diversity," Krislov said. The high court has passed up other well-known cases that presented similar questions about the role of race in higher education. That raises the stakes for the Michigan cases, but there is still no guarantee that the justices will agree to hear Grutter's appeal. The court returns from its summer recess in late September. The justices could accept or reject the case later in the fall, or they could delay consideration until the appeals court rules in the companion Michigan case
On the Net: to read the 6th Circuit rulings in the University Michigan cases: ca6.uscourts.gov ©2002 Associated Press
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