The law school opinion mentions Hopwood a couple times in cites demonstrating circuit splits on whether diversity is a compelling interest and whether Powell’s opinion is the holding of Bakke. The Court adopts positions contrary to Hopwood on both issues, but does not discuss anything about the facts of that case (which were actually pretty close to the U of M’s undergrad points system, as I recall).
The undergrad opinion makes no mention of Hopwood.
december, El Jeffe, and holmes:
the whole argument over affirmative action boils down to the points raised by Douglass’s words.
Has the black population of this country, since emancipation, been elevated to the point where they can be left to stand on their own feet, or have they been cut down?
Affirmative Action will be unnecessary when all colors can be sure that their genetic make-up is not being used as an excuse to hold them back.
As for the OP, I agree with previous posters that the essence of these paired decisions seems to be a kind of “don’t ask, don’t tell” stance on a tax-supported school’s efforts toward a diverse student body. It seems to me to say “go ahead and play with the variables to achieve the diversity you seek, but PLEASE don’t be so obvious as to assign set numbers of points for race.”
Consideration of race would be unnecessary if we could be sure that non-whites were guaranteed the same primary and secondary educational opportunies as whites across the board. Then, college populations would statistically reflect general population percentages.
It shouldn’t be necessary to jerry-rig the college admissions process to make up for earlier educational discrepancies, but I have yet to see any robust statistics showing the lower education situation to be as equitable as it can be.
While I have not had a chance to read the decision(s), my guess is that now we have some reliable guidance from the court as to what passes muster and what doesn’t. That alone will be of great help to the people in charge of putting admission policies together and administering them.
I am a little concerned, however, about the suggestion that these decisions are a temporary stop gap reading of the constitutional standards. While I buy the idea that the Constitution is a flexible document which must be read to adapt to the social conditions of the moment, it seems to me that it is hopelessly optimistic to think that the inequities that the U of M admission policies are expected to correct will evaporate like morning fog in the next 25 years. It has taken us 140 years, more or less, to get here; I don’t expect a level playing field to emerge in the next quarter century.
One effect that O’Conner’s “25 year extension” for AA might have is that it leaves the door pretty wide open for future cases to overturn this one. And with a 5-4 decision, all it would take is for one justice to retire. Will AA now become a new litmus test by Dems for future SCotUS Justice nominees (like abortion seems to be now)?
There are a couple of points:
In Bakke, the UC Davis Med School guaranteed 16 out of 100 places to minority applicants, and minority applicants could also ask to be evaluated through a separate admissions system. That decision ruled against that tyype of specific quota-based and separate-qualification-based system. Neither of the current UofM programs meet this definition.
In Gratz (the undergraduate case), there was no specific number of places reserved, and, as Cranky says, the minority percentage of incoming classes has varied. Nevertheless, Rehnquist held that
does not meet the standard. You have to look at individual applicants individually. (I’m obviously paraphrasing the portion after the quote)
In Grutter (the Law school case), the Law School does consider each applicant individually. Also the testimony consistently established that the “critical mass” was not a specific number or percentage of the entering class.
Both Rehnquist and O’Connor quote an earlier decision (Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peña) to emphasize this point. As O’Connor’s decision quotes
The undergraduate program used a group classification - race - to simply award 20% of the points necessary to qualify. The Law school used an overall goal of “class diversity”, which was explicitly not limited to race to consider applicants.
ALthough most courts have interpreted Bakke, as watsonwill says, by Powell’s opinion, it was a fractured court. Many schools have used Powell’s opinion as a guidline to setting admissions policies, not not all courts have agreed. As Rehnquist noted
Both decisions accept Powell’s reasoning on the importance of diversity as a starting point for their analysis of the current admissions af UofM.
I’m sure minty will be along to correct me if I got any of that wrong.
I mostly agree with the decision. If you have spots for ten students and you get 20 qualified applicants, you start considering other things such as geography, extra-curricular activities, things like that. I have no problem with race being a factor here, because there are situations in which I, as a white person, could make an environment more culturally diverse, just as a black person could in a different environment. I think this is what the law school was doing, for the most part. However, the undergrad program was automatically awarding an advantage to minorities, regardless of their other qualifications or ability to make the University of Michigan a more culturally diverse place, and that is what is, in the way I interpreted the decision, not right.
So because one system doesn’t work “well enough” you artificially manipulate another system to the detriment of others to “make up” for it? How will artificially inflating minority students’ profiles fix lower education? Should highschools start tacking on a half-point to all minority students’ GPAs?
Nah, I think you got it. From the little I’ve read, it seems universities can consider an applicant’s race for purposes of achieving a diverse student body, but that consideration must be done on an individual basis and cannot be achieved by automatically awarding bonus points to the applicant. Bonus points are not sufficiently narrowly tailored to achieve the compelling state interest of achieving diversity in education, but squishy individual analysis is sufficiently narrowly tailored.
Sorta like how the justices themselves hire law clerks; no quotas, no standard racial bonuses, but they can consider the race of the applicant and decide to hire her in part because the hiring would promote the diversity of the Court’s staff.
Reading the Justices’ opinions in Gratz v. Bollinger, it seems to me that they are merely altering the position of the diversity consideration in the acceptence pipeline. They are saying, don’t use race or ethnic background when determining whether applicants are qualified, marginal, or unqualified. Once that has been determined, then screening of marginal candidates for further separation into accepted and rejected candiates can consider campus diversity.
But how should that separation be done? What does “narrowly tailored” mean? Justice Thomas opines that all “underrepresented minority” candidates receiving the same bonus in the UM system is inherently unfair. What, should they adopt a sliding scale? Two points for every Snoop Dogg album you own? Three points if you can salsa? Minus seven points if you’ve been to an 'NSync concert?
Actually, that last one might be a good rule.
So now college admittance programs are left to try to figure out yet again how to make a “fair” preferential system. Narrowly tailored diversity standards have been placed into the same legal framework as obscenity: “I can’t define what it is, but I’ll know it when I see it.”
Artifically inflating students’ profiles does not make up for deficiencies in their prior education. I don’t believe that universities intend that, nor does the poster you quoted.
Colleges and Universities can only do so much to improve the actual problems of K-12 education (though they are trying and I applaud that). When it comes to recruitment and admissions, they’re not trying to turn back the clock. Programs like those employed by U-M are trying to make up for the fact that capable students from certain backgrounds may not look as good on paper. Tacking on points or “inflating” a GPA (or however you want to look at) it is simply a temporary measure to boost those students up so they can be dealt with in a mass-action admissions process.
Mass-action admissions even without affirmative action is crude and unsatisfactory. But at present. many universities don’t have another way to deal with an applicant pool where there are multiple qualified candidates for every spot in the freshman class. The University is saying, “Whatever the problems of K-12 education, we are not going to FURTHER compound it by overlooking qualified students who are disadvantaged by the crudeness of our mass-action process.”
re: Hopwood:
This case seems to overturn it. Hopwood said that diversity is NOT a compelling governmental interest. Only remedies for specific past discrimination is compelling (saying Powell’s decision in Bakke wasn’t binding since it wasn’t the narrowest holding). Gratz DISTINCTLY makes clear that diversity IS compelling.
I’m not sure I understand how a capable, qualified student could not look as good on paper as another capable, qualified student. I realize everything can’t be quantified, but it seems to me that in determining qualifications for college, most of it would be documented.
I suppose we could be using different definitions of qualified here, but could you give an example of two equally qualified college applicants, one looking good “on paper” and one not so much?
And the white and Asian students who were both qualified and overlooked were “disadvantaged by the crudeness of [their] mass-action process.”
This isn’t a simple qualified-versus-unqualified comparison. No one who was qualified was rejected. What happened was that there were people who were marginal who were ultimately rejected, who had qualifications that were better than others who were ultimately accepted.
The problem with the UM solution was that it upgraded applicants’ qualifications if they were Hispanic, African-American, or Native American. Some who would have been marginal were pushed into the qualified strata, and were automatically accepted without any further judgement. And, some who were unqualified were pushed up into the marginal strata. I don’t know how often the initially-unqualified were eventually accepted, though.
Yes, I followed but let me lead me you. Did you really think Mr. Douglass would believe it would take another hundred years before “negros” would be left alone?
“And if the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! If you see him on his way to school, let him alone, don’t disturb him! If you see him going to the dinner table at a hotel, let him go! If you see him going to the ballot- box, let him alone, don’t disturb him!”
It took another 100 years, before Blacks could be left alone to vote in some states. 100 years more, before they could go to decent schools, to hotels, to water fountains…to be left alone.
For Decmeber’s use of this quote to have any meaning, blacks would have to free not only of the white’sman help, but of his injustice as well. It’s well and good to quote the man’s views on pity, but IMO dishonest to ignore that he places equal value on the injustice placed upon the black man.
“I am not asking for sympathy at the hands of abolitionists, sympathy at the hands of any. I think the American people are disposed often to be generous rather than just. I look over this country at the present time, and I see Educational Societies, Sanitary Commissions, Freedmen’s Associations, and the like,–all very good: but in regard to the colored people there is always more that is benevolent, I perceive, than just, manifested towards us. What I ask for the Negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice.”
Yes Douglass didn’t want blacks to be treated as children, that didn’t mean that he didn’t want society to own up to it obligations to them, to be just. Is it injust to realize that a certain segment of society have been unfairly treated and to attempt to correct it? I suppose it’s how it’s done.
Yes I think Douglass would be opposed to randomly picking black people and placing them, regardless of their qualifications in institutes of higher learning. I’m not so sure, he would have a problem however, with chosing qualified people and allowing them the opportunity to better themeselves…which is what AA is supposed to do.
With that I’ll end my hijack.
There’s all sorts of “diversity” that law schools want. Geographical diversity. Diversity of undergraduate studies (add in a few engineers and microbiologists with the poli sci and philosophy majors.) Diversity on a true individualist scale, looking at people and personalities. It’s generally considered by law school admissions that a variety of life experiences by the student body will provide a broad range of perspectives, valuable both in the classroom and socially.
However, diversity based on race isn’t really diversity at all, IMHO. Grouping people by race is just collectivism disguised as diversity.
True enough. Remember that the student who brought this case was definitely marginal. She had a 161 on her LSAT. That’s roughly the 80th-83rd percentile. That’s a fine score if you want to attend a third tier school like Kansas, they would practically shower you with scholarships. If you’re applying to a top school like Michigan, that’s basically right on the cutoff.
I can’t find my copy, but there’s a list the LSDAS sends out that gives the initial “cutoff” formula for each law school. The formulas take the form Ax + By + C > D, where x and y are the LSAT and GPA, and A, B, C, and D are defined constants. Roughly speaking, running a 161 and a 3.8 through that formula put this girl right on the cusp.
On the distinction between the law school policy and undergrad policy…
Worth noting is that since women now outnumber men in law schools nationally, gender is apparently no longer a factor that needs to be promoted as part of the “diversity” goal. This tells me that when blacks approach a percentage of law school enrollment that approaches their percentage of the population as a whole, the law schools would hopefully feel this was no longer necessary. If they get enough qualified black applicants, the UM law school policy would not have any affect, because it comes into play only when that is lacking. The undergrad policy, however, added those points regardless of the applicant mix.
Speaking as a Democrat, I don’t feel the issue carries the same level of importance as abortion.
A couple of interesting excerpts from the law school decision, majority opinion…
…so about 10 percent of all applicants can be admitted.
(bolding mine)
So 10% of the entire pool of applicants are admitted. Without racial preferences, “only” 10% of minority applicants would be admitted. So, if the preference was abandoned, the percentage of the minority applicants who are accepted would be exactly the same as the percentage of total applicants accepted. Through inference, we can conclude that proportionally as many minority applicants are qualified under a pure LSAT/GPA test as other students are. So how does this result in a lower number of minority groups in the law school class?
They don’t need to give a boost to minority applicants, the minority applicants are qualified to the exact same proportion that the rest of the applicants are. What they actually need to promote diversity is not “better” minority applicants, but more minority applicants. That is the source of the deficiency. Their policy cures the wrong problem.
What they ought to be doing is figuring out why they are deficient in raw number of minority applicants. Because from the numbers presented at trial, it’s apparent that for every additional 100 minority applicants, 10 of them would be qualified without any preferences at all. Increase your minority applicant pool in raw numbers, and you’ve solved your problem.
It’s pretty simple, actually, lets make up a couple students for examples.
Student A spent her senior year taking Honors English Literature of the 1800’s, AP Organic Chemistry, AP Advanced Calculus, Latin 4, AP US Government and Journalism where she held the position of editor of the school newspaper. She joined the Honor Society, was president of the photojournalism club and vice president of the Science club. She got excellent scores on her SAT and passed 3 AP tests. In her spare time, she served an internship in New York as an editor’s assistant of a magazine, and during the school year she did part time work for a law firm.
Student B spent her senior year taking English 4, Chemistry, Spanish 3, Algebra 2, US government and woodshop. She joined the honor society, but did not serve in a leadership role in any clubs. Her SAT scores were excellent, but not as high as student A, and did not take any AP tests. She worked after school at a local fast food restraunt, where she was eventually promoted to manager. During the summers she worked full time.
Student A clearly looks like the winner. What you don’t know about student B is that she took the most advanced classes offered at her school, which did not include honors or AP classes, much less interesting electives. She did well on her SAT, which she could not obtain any preparation materials or classes for, but she didn’t even know that AP tests were availible to people who havn’t taken specifically AP classes. She worked to pay for her lunches, and to help her supplement her family’s income when her mom (a teacher) was out of work during the summers. Between this and caring for her siblings after school while her mom worked a second job to pay off her own student loans, Student B didn’t have a lot of time to join clubs or do volunteer work. She certainly didn’t have the ability to live in an expensive city to do an unpaid internship, or a father that works at a law firm who could find a prestigious sounding position for her.
Don’t laugh. The second student is a good friend of mine, who managed to get admitted to UC Berkeley, graduated with honors and is now looking at graduate schools. She’s a bright, genius-quality woman who will bring success wherever she goes and prestige to whatever school she goes to. But that didn’t go too far in high school, where she was offered a bare bones cirriculum, a household with no money in it and a lot of adult pressures. That doesn’t mean she is less capable or less qualified than someone with a stellar application. High school level applications often reflect how many oppertunities a child was given and what kind of parents they have as much as their talents and abilities. Many students who have never been given the chance to succeed soar when they get to college, and many kids who had been forced by their parents into clubs and activities, and who are used to tiny classes with lots of individual attention, fail on their own. That is why colleges take many things into account beyond pure acomplishment when decideing admissions.
It sounds to me like the court is saying if all things are equal, you can choose based on race.
The next question is what percentage do you use? Base population rates or college-eligible rates?
Where are you getting your information? This is simply untrue. Every year, students who are qualified and capable – that is, students who took the required college prep program, and whose test scores and grades suggest they would be successful at Michigan – are turned away. There simply aren’t the places available in the freshman class.
I’m afraid your math is wrong. Admissions committees have to consider yield. It’s the crap-shoot part of the process. If you have a yield rate of 25%, then you’d got to accept four times as many applicants as you hope to have show up in fall.
Given U-M Law’s national ranking, I am sure their yield rate is high (I don’t know it offhand). However, it’s not 100%; they are competing with top law schools across the country. The competition is even fiercer for highly-desirable minority applicants.