Court Grants Stay in U-M Race-Conscious Admissions Policy

The University of Michigan (U-M) Law School will still be able to consider race in its application criteria, at least for the time being.

On Thursday, a three-judge panel of the Sixth U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati granted the university its requested stay of a court ruling from two weeks ago that called Michigan's affirmative action clause unconstitutional.

The March 27 injunction halted the law school's consideration of race in the admissions process.

"The injunction now in place irreparably harms the University of Michigan and disrupts the selection of the 2001-2002 first-year law school class," Thursday's federal order said.

Issued by District Court Judge Bernard A. Friedman, the March injunction came in the wake of a two and half-year lawsuit filed against the university by a Caucasian female applicant, who alleged that she was not admitted to the U-M Law School because of racial discrimination.

She accused the university of using race as a predominant factor in admissions, "giving minority applicants a significantly greater chance of admissions than students with similar credentials from disfavored racial groups. "

U-M President and one-time Harvard presidential candidate Lee C. Bollinger has been the prominent defendant in the case, known as Grutter vs. Bollinger {ITALICS].

Bollinger previously told The Crimson that if the U-M affirmative action policy were not upheld, society would run the risk of sliding "back into a world in which we don't attend to [civil rights] issues." He compared the implications of the current lawsuit to the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education {ITALICS].

In addition to U-M's appeal, Friedman's March decision against the affirmative action policy set off a nationwide chain reaction.

On March 29, Reverend Jesse Jackson rallied a crowd of hundreds of U-M students to protest of the injunction.

"This is another great movement now. Affirmative action is not a minority issue-it is a majority issue," Jackson told listeners.

Thursday's decision-though still to be followed by further legal process-is a promising victory for Jackson and university officials.

In the federal order, the court also told the university that it would expedite its pending appeal of the March decision against U-M.

"We are delighted that the Sixth Circuit has acted promptly to ensure that our admissions process may continue without disruption," said U-M Law Dean Jeffrey Lehman in a U-M press release on Thursday.