LAST WEEK, U.S. Federal Judge Bernard Fried- man ruled against the University of Michigan Law School's affirmative action policy. Freidman ruled on a lawsuit brought by Barbara Grutter, a white woman who was a 1997 applicant to the law school and claimed that the school's affirmative action policy influenced her rejection. Friedman's ruling was wrong, as it is important that an effective level of affirmative action continue to ensure that diversity always will be present on campuses nationwide.
Friedman asserted that the law school's affirmative action policy was unconstitutional because it kept approximately 10 percent of each incoming class reserved for minorities. He ordered the school to immediately end this policy. However, there is evidence against Friedman's claim, and it's possible that he misinterpreted the information presented in the case.
University admissions always have been subjective processes. Usually, there are many more qualified applicants than spaces in the incoming class. It's almost impossible to accommodate everyone in the process. Factors other than one's academic achievements often are taken into consideration. Race-based affirmative action is only one of many non-academic areas in which applicants are screened. Other factors include athletic ability, alumni status and a whole slew of other special skills that are unique to each applicant.
The underlying fact is that, although a university's prime aim is to recruit students of a certain academic level, there's also the secondary goal of creating a class composed of many different and diverse people. It is here that affirmative action policies come into play. Many members of minority groups come from under-privileged environments and lack some of the opportunities that their more affluent counterparts enjoy. Affirmative action gives qualified students the opportunity to receive an education that they may not have had a chance to obtain otherwise because of circumstances beyond their control.
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Since affirmative action involves subjective measures and decisions, several steps have been taken to make it as fair as possible. In the 1978 Supreme Court case University Of California Regents v. Bakke, the court ruled that specific racial quotas are unconstitutional, as the Fourteenth Amendment gives equal protection to all citizens regardless of race. With the laws that have been made to regulate affirmative action, race only can be considered as a factor in admission as opposed to being the reason for it.
The University of Michigan Law School testified that its affirmative action policies are within the bounds of U.S. law. Statistics have shown that the percentage of minorities in Michigan's incoming class has fluctuated between 10 and 17 percent during the last few years, and therefore there is no numerical quota that they are looking to fulfill. Though race is used as a factor in considering admission, there is no evidence to prove that if race wasn't considered, the numbers of non-minority applicants admitted would increase significantly.
Andrew Doctoroff, an attorny, said that Friedman "seems to have legislated from the bench, illustrating how a judge's policy preferences wend their way into the law." It's possible that Friedman may have not completely understood the statistics involved in the case. Though Friedman may be a knowledgeable and unbiased adjudicator, he is human and therefore capable of mistakes.
It could have been that there were many non-racially motivated reasons as to why Barbara Grutter was not admitted into the University of Michigan Law School in 1997. Race may not have been an issue at all. One way or another, the final decision on this case is far from dictated. Hopefully, before an ultimate ruling is made the judges or justices in question will consider the positive effects of affirmative action before making a ruling that could end it.
(Alex Rosemblat is a Cavalier Daily viewpoint writer.)
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