THE INTERVENORS: Minority students argue
a different view THE INTERVENORS: Minority students argue
a different view
For them, righting wrong - not diversity - is issue
March 27, 2003
BY MARYANNE GEORGE
FREE PRESS ANN ARBOR BUREAU
Agnes Aleobua was just 16 at the time -- a student at Detroit's premier high school, Cass Tech -- but she knew her mind. She was clear that she didn't like to share beakers and aprons in science labs or use outdated textbooks or see roaches in the cafeteria. And she was clear -- after hearing a pitch on a gray February day in 1998 -- that she wanted to become a part of history. She wanted to help fight a lawsuit challenging the University of Michigan's race-conscious admissions policies. Aleobua begged her parents, Paul and Rose, to sign papers allowing her to join the case against the U-M Law School as an intervenor, a third party given legal status to present a take on a case.
"My dad said, 'If you're sure, I'll sign,' " said Aleobua, 21, now a U-M senior. He did sign, and his daughter become one of 58 students with intervenor status in lawsuits challenging admissions policies for law students and undergraduates. Weeks later, Aleobua attended the first of many rallies about the issue on the U-M Diag. During the five years since, she has sat in courtrooms, given interviews and shouted slogans through bullhorns. At a Martin Luther King Jr. Day rally in January, Aleobua led hundreds of U-M students in an eloquent and passionate pledge "not to give up or sell out." On Tuesday, she will stand next to her mother outside the U.S. Supreme Court with thousands of other U-M supporters as the court hears arguments in the two cases.
"This fight isn't just about U-M," Aleobua said. "It's a fight for national equality. Being part of this movement has taught me more about society than any book or class." U-M officials didn't completely welcome the intervenors' arguments. The students and their lawyers dredged up more than 100 years of allegations about racism at U-M to help defend the university's use of race in admissions. They also argue that some factors in the admissions process -- such as points on U-M's 150-point scale for good schools and alumni parents -- favor white students. Undergraduate minority applicants get an extra 20 points on the scale.
Applicants with alumni parents get 4 points, and those from schools with a good curriculum get 2 to 10. The use of race is necessary to remedy the discrimination, they say. U-M lawyers say creating a diverse student body improves education for all students and that the university's admissions systems, which considers race as one of many factors, complies with a 1978 Supreme Court ruling in the landmark Bakke case. In that case, the court said race can be used to achieve diverse campuses. Although they have fought to stay in the cases for five years, the students' lawyers will not be allowed to address the nine Supreme Court justices.
The court refused to make a rare exception and give the intervenors time to argue their case. U-M lawyers, who say they need all of their 30 minutes to explain their diversity defense, refused to surrender any time. Ted Shaw, associate director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's Legal Defense and Educational Fund who represents student intervenors in the undergraduate case, said the diversity defense ignores the nation's history. "There were virtually no blacks at U-M before the 1970s. Why shouldn't U-M have a compelling interest in remedying this?" he asked. "U-M didn't wake up one day and say, 'Let's have diversity!'
"A group forms Lawyers for the intervenors began discussing how to enter the cases in October 1997, at Christ Presbyterian Church. The Rev. Milton Henry, a veteran civil rights advocate, is the pastor at the low slung, blond-brick building in Southfield. A graduate of Yale Law School in 1950, Henry, 83, had led struggles in Pontiac and Detroit to open housing, employment and schools to black people. A group of 50 lawyers, including Shaw and Henry, networked with schools, churches and other organizations to find intervenors. Shaw's organization had been blocked from intervening in a case against the University of Texas School of Law, known as the Hopwood case.
In that case, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled in 1996 that race could not be used as a factor in admissions. Minority voices also had not been represented in a landmark 1978 Supreme Court case, known as Bakke, Shaw said. In that ruling, the court allowed the use of race in admissions to further diversity. "For 25 years, access to higher education for African Americans at selective institutions has rested on the interests of the institution and white students, rather than recognition of compelling interest to open up educational opportunities for African Americans who have a long history of oppression," he said. The lawyers met with students from schools in Detroit and Ann Arbor and their parents at the church. The students were interviewed and videotaped.
They formed an organization called Citizens for Affirmative Action's Preservation (CAAP) and wrote a manifesto. On Feb. 5, 1998, they filed a motion in U.S. District Court in Detroit to intervene in the undergraduate case. On March 26, 1998, a group of 41 students, represented by Detroit attorney Miranda Massie, filed a motion to intervene in the law school case. "It was a brave thing to do," said Reggie Turner, one of the attorneys in the coalition. "They put themselves on the line by intervening in the cases.
They might be vilified by the plaintiffs, who asserted they were not qualified to be at U-M." In Detroit, federal district judges hearing the cases denied both groups' motions to intervene. While their appeal was pending before the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, the groups continued to gather evidence. In 1999, the appeals court allowed the students into the cases. Lawyers for CAAP presented evidence that black students were not permitted to enroll until 1868. Nearly a century later, in 1966, there were about 400 in a student body of 32,000 -- slightly more than 1 percent. Massie, an activist lawyer in Detroit, recalled pleading with national experts to help on the law school case without pay. One who agreed to help was John Hope Franklin, a professor emeritus at Duke University and celebrated historian.
He was a key researcher in the 1954 landmark case Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court decision in that desegregated the nation's schools. "I called him up and told him 'if you testify, it's more likely we'll win,' " Massie recalled. "He said, 'Young lady, you don't need to tell me the importance of these cases.' " Franklin delivered powerful testimony about racism in America in the law school trial in early 2001. Still, U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman struck down the law school policy a few months later.
Last year, the court of appeals reversed Friedman in a 5-4 ruling but never issued an opinion in the undergraduate case. Issue isn't just black and white The lawsuits have sparked debate and controversy on U-M's campus. Diego Bernal, a U-M law student and chairman of the Latino Law Students Association, became an intervenor in the law school case. "I saw the U-M cases framed as a black-white issue," Bernal, 26, from San Antonio, said recently. "I was willing to take a stand to get Latino voices out there." Beth Kronk, an American Indian law student and chairwoman of the U-M Native American Law Students Association, worked on a brief for the Supreme Court with Bernal and other minority law school students. "No one is talking about Native Americans in the suits," said Kronk, 24, of Lansing.
"Indians are not even part of the debate. It's frustrating because it perpetuates the invisibility of Native Americans." More than 6,400 U-M students who voted last week in student government elections split evenly on the issue of U-M's admissions policies. Many agree with U.S. President George W. Bush, who in January said the policies amounted to quotas. U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olson will argue Bush's position before the court Tuesday. Elnora Priest, a U-M student from Stockton, Calif., did not indicate she is black on her application.
"Affirmative action is a form of racism," said Priest, 24, a biopsychology major. "The ultimate solution is straightening out K-12 schools in cities like Detroit. Why not support these kids when they are struggling in high school and they need better books?" If only it were so simple, say supporters of affirmative action. Henry said that regardless of the outcome, the students have added a critical voice to the debate over race in America. "What we want to do is to keep these flagship universities open," he said.
Contact MARYANNE GEORGE at mageorge@freepress.com.
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