Race
issue triggers policy changes Race
issue triggers policy changes
Controversy remains unsettled in federal courts as colleges tackle affirmative action
By Ronald J. Hansen / The Detroit News
DETROIT -- The ruling to uphold the University of Michigan Law School's affirmative-action admissions policy underscored how unsettled the issue remains in the nation's federal courts.
The latest decision offers perhaps the best chance for the U.S. Supreme Court to step into a thicket that has confronted schools from Texas to Washington state to Georgia and Michigan.
ĘThe Supreme Court handed down its seminal ruling on affirmative action in 1978 when it struck down racial quotas at the University of California but left open the limited use of racial consideration. A wave of legal challenges in the 1990s has since made courts across the nation wrestle with revised policies.
Sheldon Steinbach, general counsel to the American Council on Education in Washington, hailed Tuesday's ruling as a reaffirmation of the right of universities to choose their student bodies.
At the same time, the conflicting decisions elsewhere and revised admission policies could give the decision limited impact on campuses nationwide, he said.
"In some ways, the issue has moved along dramatically in the past five to
seven years," Steinbach said. "Schools have gone to a much broader set of (admission)
factors. One doesn't have the same kind of process that was being ruled unconstitutional."
In 1996, the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a policy at the University of Texas that included race as a factor in choosing who gained admission to its law school.
The school never achieved racial diversity equal to the state's overall diversity, and minority enrollment in the law school dropped steeply after the ruling.
Texas has since implemented a "10 percent solution" that automatically guarantees admission to any student finishing in the top 10 percent of his high school class. Because many schools lack racial diversity, the rule is seen as a way of ensuring a minority presence.
In California, voters in 1996 approved a referendum that abolished affirmative action. Shortly afterward, state law schools saw enrollment of black students dwindle to single digits. However, seven of the nine schools in the University of California system have since made substantial gains chiefly because of aggressive minority outreach efforts, Steinbach said.
As in California, voters in Washington state ultimately decided an affirmative action battle at the University of Washington.
In the mid-1990s, the university enacted policies intended to raise the minority presence there.
As a lawsuit made its way through the courts, 58 percent of Washington's voters approved an initiative in 1998 that forbade the school from using racial preferences. It was modeled after the California referendum.
Last year, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the school's old policy, but the university had to change its selection criteria anyway because of the initiative. The Supreme Court has refused to hear appeals in the case.
While the famously liberal Ninth Circuit embraced racial preferences last year, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals did not.
In August, it struck down a policy at the University of Georgia for borderline admissions that considered race and whether the prospective student would be the first in their family to go to college. Rather than fight the ruling, the school changed its policies.
You can reach Ronald J. Hansen at (313) 222-2019 or rhansen@detnews.com.
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