U. Michigan Ordered To Drop Affirmative Action in Law School

A federal judge ruled last week that the University of Michigan's (U-M) use of race in its law school admissions policy is unconstitutional in a legal battle that many speculate will eventually reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

In a 90-page decision released last Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Bernard Friedman said that the U-M law school should abandon its current admissions policy, which aims toward achieving a "critical mass" of minority students, and instead strive for "race-neutral" admissions.

"I think Judge Friedman's decision is wrong on the law and wrong on the facts," University of Michigan President Lee C. Bollinger, who was recently on the short list for the Harvard presidency, told the Crimson in an interview in Ann Arbor last week.

In his ruling, Friedman said that the U-M policy over-emphasized race.

"The evidence shows that race is not, as defendants have argued, merely one factor in the admissions process," he wrote.

Friedman also argued that the law school's use of racial criterion was "indistinguishable from a straight quota system."

The ruling directly contradicts a December decision by U.S. District Court Judge Patrick Duggan, which upheld the school's affirmative action program in undergraduate admissions.

But Bollinger is quick to point out that last week's decision does not detract from Duggan's earlier ruling.

"It has been treated as if it has more weight, but it doesn't," he said.

Bollinger said the university is prepared to see the case through the Supreme Court if it becomes necessary.

Immediately after Friedman released the ruling, U-M officials said that they would appeal the decision in the Sixth Circuit Court.

"We have documented with empirical evidence that racial and ethnic diversity enhance learning and the preparation of our students to work and participate as citizens in our increasing diverse society... We are confident that we will prevail in a higher court," U-M Provost Nancy Cantor said in a press release.

In addition, Bollinger said that the university will "seek an immediate stay of the court's order so that we can continue our efforts to offer an integrated legal education in Michigan."

Bollinger compared the Michigan affirmative action lawsuits to the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v. Topeka Board of Education, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that public schools should be integrated. If the U-M affirmative action policy is not upheld, he said, society runs the risk of sliding "back into a world in which we don't attend to those issues."

Bollinger stressed that the results of the U-M cases are relevant at private institutions like Harvard as well.

Under Title VI, a higher court ruling against affirmative action would affect all institutions that receive federal money, meaning that Harvard could no longer use race as a factor in its admissions process.

"It's not just a public university issue," Bollinger said.

-Staff writer Catherine E. Shoichet can be reached at shoichet@fas.harvard.edu.