8 - The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, June 24, 2003
ADMISSIONS ON TRIAL
dmissions
Lawsuits
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THE HISTORY
Laws, rulings reflect
race's role in society
By C. Price Jones
Daily News Editor
Since the first mention of "affirmative
action" in March 1961 by President John F.
Kennedy, the issue of using race in admissions
has taken many twists and turns on the road
towards the state it is now in.
Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court added a new
road map by ruling in favor of the University's
admissions policies in the Law School yet declar-
ing LSA's point system unconstitutional, actions
which further piece together what is and is not
constitutional about the use of race in admissions
policies.
But the use of race in admissions policies is not
the only consideration in the two court rulings
yesterday, for the question of race extends to gov-
ernment employment, military admissions, and
hiring policies of businesses and corporations.
When Kennedy issued an executive order to
create the Committee on Equal Employment
Opportunity, the agency's purpose was to end
discrimination based on race, religion, sex or
nationality in employment. His order required
that federally funded projects "take affirma-
tive action" to end discrimination and bias in
hiring practices.
The use of race in hiring practices or for
achieving diversity was not actually enforced
until four years later by President Lyndon
Johnson. In an executive order in September
1965, a year after he signed the Civil Rights
Act that prohibited all types of discrimination,
Johnson required government contractors to
hire minority workers, an order that was later
amended to include hiring workers without
discrimination on gender.
After orders by Johnson and Kennedy, Presi-
dent Richard Nixon would make his order to
ensure that practices in hiring workers were fair
concerning race. In the Philadelphia Order,
Nixon singled out unions and the construction
industry as the "most egregious offenders
against equal opportunity laws" but added that
the government would not impose quotas to
meet the standards that would be necessary for
increasing minorityemployment.
The question of quotas reentered the debate
nine years later in one of the most important
cases concerning race in admissions policies
Regents of the University of California v.
Bakke. A white applicant to the University of
California at Davis medical school, Allan
Bakke, sued the college because he believed it
discriminated against whites.
In this 5-4 decision that passed through the 9th
Circuit, the Supreme Court declared the use of
quotas unconstitutional, that is, the specific set-
ting aside of a number of seats for minority stu-
dents. Not until Bakke did the use of race in
college admissions actually enter the arena of the
use of race and discrimination after the Civil
Rights Act in 1964. In his dissenting opinion of
the case, Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote that he
agrees with the ruling only as it "permits a uni-
versity to consider the race of an applicant in
making admissions decisions."
Yet two years later in Fullilove v. Klutznick, the
court ruled that not all quotas were unconstitu-
tional and that 15 percent of public works funds
be set aside for minority contractors. The court
further ruled that this percentage did not violate
the rights of non-minority contractors.
Further rulings narrowed and widened the use
of race in cases involving admittance of state
troopers in Alabama in United States v. Paradise
and firing of non-minority teachers despite their
seniority in Wygant v. Jackson Board of Educa-
tion.
Not until 1996 would the issue reach the
Supreme Court again in the form of a case con-
cerning race in college admissions policies in
Hopwood v. University of Texas Law School, a
ruling that came from the U.S. 5th Circuit Court
of Appeals, which the Supreme Court allowed to
stand.
The lower court's ruling included the suspen-
sion of the university's admissions program and
ruled that the Bakke decision was invalid. Hop-
wood also stated "educational diversity is not rec-
ognized as a compelling state interest," a direct
conflict with the 1978 Bakke ruling.
Similarly, the court decided not to hear other
hearings involving race-conscious admissions
policies at the University of Washington, in which
the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of
using race as a factor in admissions, and the Uni-
versity of Georgia, in which the 11th Circuit
Court of Appeals ruled against race-conscious
admissions policies. By now several rulings had
come down on both sides of the issue, a debate
that preceded an ultimate decision intended to
solve the issue once and for all.
The Hopwood ruling came down shortly after a
memorandum by President Bill Clinton that
called for the elimination of any program that "(a)
creates a quota; (b) creates preferences for
unqualified individuals; (c) creates reverse dis-
crimination; or (d) continues even after its equal
opportunity purposes have been achieved."
Another event that challenged the use of race in
admissions was California's Proposition 209,
which outlawed all forms of affirmative action.
The proposal was withheld from being put into
effect for almost a year and banned discrimina-
tion and preferential treatment for any individual
or group. Following California's lead, Washington
and Florida b ained affirmative action in 1998
and 2000, respectively.
Meanwhile, the admissions policies of the Uni-
versity of Michigpn had been challenged in 1997
y the Center for Individual Rights. In December
2000, U.S. District Judge Patrick Duggan ruled
that the use of race in admissions was constitu-
tional in the case against LSA, which had already
changed its admissions system from the grid sys-
tem it formerly used to the point system, which
was struck down yesterday. But a year later, in the
similar case involving the Law School's admis-
sions policies, another judge ruled against the
school's policies.
To make matters more confusing, the decision
was reversed on May 14, 2002, when the case
reached the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Thus, the courts had ruled both in favor and not
in favor of the use of race in the Law School's
admissions policies.
The Supreme Court decided to hear the argu-
ments of both sides and settle the issue of race in
admissions policies, which is part of the intention
of yesterday's rulings.
THE DIVIDED CIRCUITS:
Rulings from appeals court districts
Ky.Mich., Ohio & Tenn.
d. & Wis. In 6rutter v. Bollinger, the Law School's admis-
sions practices were found constitutional. In
Gratz v. Bollinger, the court found Michigan's
point system unconstitutional.
N.D., S.D., Neb., Iowa, Mo., Ark. &
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