The University of Michigan has decided to comply with a federal judge's ruling earlier this month that it and two other public universities must immediately stop employing gender and racial preferences in admissions.
The ruling concerned enforcement of Michigan's Proposal 2, a referendum banning affirmative action in state education and government, which was passed with 58 percent support in November. After the initiative passed, the University of Michigan and Wayne State and Michigan State universities halted their admission altogether in order to ask the court for a six-month extension allowing them to consider race and gender, but the district court ordered them to comply with the ban immediately.
On Jan. 19, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal, meaning the ruling is final.
How the ruling will affect the admission cycle at the university remains unclear. Admission officials declined to comment.
By Any Means Necessary, a group dedicated to affirmative action and immigrant rights, is currently challenging Proposal 2 and has multiple cases filed in federal court questioning its constitutionality.
"We believe our (case) will go to the Supreme Court," said Donna Stern, the group's national coordinator.
The schools' motion to wait six months before enacting Proposal 2 was originally contested by Eric Russell, a student applying to the University of Michigan's law school. Russell had contacted the Center for Individual Rights, a special interest law firm that has dealt with cases on affirmative action at the university in the past. The firm was eager to represent Russell, who wanted his application to be reviewed without any racial preference.
"Eric Russell has a legal right to have his application judged in accordance with the Michigan Constitution, as it was amended by the voters this November, not according to a timetable university officials happen to decide is convenient," said firm president Trevor Pell in a December release.
The issue of affirmative action at the university has been under debate since 1997, when two applicants, Jennifer Gratz and Barbara Grutter, filed a lawsuit contending the university's use of affirmative action in its undergraduate and law school admissions, respectively, were unconstitutional.
In what are considered two landmark affirmative action rulings, the Supreme Court held in June 2003 that both the university's undergrad and law schools could use race as a factor in admissions only if it helped to promote diversity at the school. The undergraduate admissions system was deemed unconstitutional for its use of racial quotas.
Shortly after the ruling, Gratz invited Ward Connerly, the founder and chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute, an anti-affirmative action group, to Michigan to help propose and campaign for Proposal 2.
Many proponents of affirmative action are worried that the ban will affect the diversity of the student body, pointing to the decline in underrepresented minority enrollment that has occurred at California public universities after a similar referendum, Proposition 209, was passed in 1996. The University of Michigan is eager to avoid a similar decline, wrote Kelly Cunningham, a spokesperson for the university, in an e-mail to The Herald.
"Alumni, current students, faculty and community members will play an important role in encouraging minority students to apply to U-M, and to enroll here if admitted," Cunningham said. "President (Mary Sue) Coleman established a university-wide task force to engage the U-M community in developing fresh, innovative approaches to sustain and enhance diversity."
Meanwhile, the issue continues to appear in court. Whereas the recently denied motion was designed to give the university more time to comply with Proposal 2, By Any Means Necessary's current legal battle directly challenges the law's constitutionality. The cases could go to the Supreme Court this summer, Stern said.
According to Stern, the court's refusal to hear the motions was a way of strengthening the group's resolve to minimize the effects of Proposal 2.
"We weren't disappointed, and we're prepared to fight until the end - until the proposal gets overturned," Stern said.
Pell said his group will continue to work to keep affirmative action out of Michigan. He said the Supreme Court's refusal to hear the motion to delay the ban was the right one, and they will continue supporting that view.
"We're confident the (court) got it right," Pell said.
