Supporters
place hope on appeal Supporters
place hope on appeal
Opponents say ruling may be death knell for affirmative action
By Oralandar Brand-Williams / The Detroit News
DETROIT -- Opponents hailed and supporters bemoaned the latest federal court ruling striking down affirmative action on Tuesday, with both groups saying it could set back minority gains in university admissions.
"We're saddened by this," said Dearborn attorney Alison Nelson, the president of the 350-member Wolverine Bar Association, which represents local black lawyers. "It needs immediate appellate review, and we are hopeful that the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals will reverse it.
"It shouldn't just be the black legal community worried," she said. "This is a diversity issue that all people should be concerned about."
U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman ruled Tuesday that the University of Michigan Law School's admissions policy is unconstitutional.
His ruling furthers the legal divide over whether ensuring diversity is a compelling enough reason to consider the color of an applicant's skin.
"There's no doubt that race-based affirmative action is living on borrowed time," said Ward Connerly, an affirmative action opponent and the University of California regent who orchestrated Proposition 209, a California law that bans racial preferences in state agencies. He is also an African American.
"It looks like the U.S. Supreme Court will have to take up the issue now."
Connerly said the solution to ending affirmative action is to ensure that the nation's failing urban and rural school systems are overhauled and that standardized testing is scratched if it is deemed flawed.
Local sentiment was even stronger.
"No longer will University of Michigan bureaucrats be able to steal admissions, scholarships and jobs from more qualified Asian and white women and men and give them to less qualified and unqualified minorities," said Dave Jaye, a Republican state senator from Macomb County and longtime affirmative action opponent.
U-M continued to get support from the business world, where a General Motors spokesman said diverse student bodies help America's workers.
"GM feels the capacities to work easily with persons of other races and to view problems from multiple complex perspectives are essential skills in the business world of the 21st century," said Jay Cooney.
Civil rights advocate N. Charles Anderson, president of the Detroit Urban League, said he hopes U-M will continue its fight to preserve its affirmative action policies.
"George Bush can get into Yale because his dad went there, but it's unfortunate that when we start using race, it's a different matter," Anderson said.
You can reach Oralandar Brand-Williams at (313) 222-2690 or bwilliams@detnews.com.
Detroit News staff writer Joel Miller contributed to this report.
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