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Supreme Court to hear Michigan cases April 1Affirmative action under scrutiny
By Bill Mears
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Students who claim their admission to a prestigious university was blocked because of their race will have their day in court, in a pair of cases that could have far-reaching implications for affirmative action. The justices announced Tuesday they will hear arguments April 1 in twin cases looking at whether affirmative action programs at the University of Michigan should continue to help minorities, or if they should be scrapped because, as the students said, they represent "reverse discrimination." The Bush administration filed briefs in the cases, opposing the way Michigan takes race into account in making admission decisions. Justices will be asked to decide whether a state has a "compelling interest" to promote a diverse student body, or whether the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment forbids giving one ethnic group or culture special advantages over another. Since the Supreme Court has not offered clear guidelines on the use of affirmative action, the justices this time could make one of the most significant decisions on equal opportunity in education. The first case involves Barbara Grutter's 1995 application to the University of Michigan's prestigious law school. It was rejected, despite what she said was "very strong" expertise in a variety of fields. "I have a lot of experience I could have brought to that class," she told CNN three years ago, when the case was being appealed. She and two other applicants sued, accusing the university of rejecting white applicants because of their race, and using unfair standards to admit lesser-qualified minorities. They want race taken out of the admission process. The laws school says it not only has the right to use race in recruiting students, but also the responsibility. "We take race into account as a factor among many in order to pursue the educational benefit of diversity," university lawyer Liz Barry told CNN in 1998. A federal appeals court in May upheld the university's law school admissions process. Undergraduate admissionsIn a surprise, justices also agreed to hear a companion case from the university dealing with undergraduate admissions. A federal appeals court has yet to rule on the undergraduate dispute, but the Supreme Court decided to hear the case anyway. Jennifer Gratz was denied admission to the undergraduate school in 1995. In her lawsuit against the school, she claims Michigan essentially runs two admissions systems to get a pre-determined racial mix of students. A controversial part of Michigan's admission policy is a 150-point scale used to grade an applicant's record. Blacks, Hispanics or Native Americans automatically received 20 points for their race, equivalent to raising their academic grade average a full point. If the court were to strike down the Michigan admissions policy, universities could be forced to change how they accept minorities. Affirmative action programs in general could also be radically affected. "These represent the most significant civil right cases the Supreme Court will have decided in the last quarter century," said Ted Shaw, associate counsel of the NAACP. "This issue is nothing less than whether the doors of opportunity remain open for students of color." Affirmative action programs were originally created to correct racial and cultural discrimination, dating from the days of slavery and public segregation. But the initiatives have proven controversial, and enforcement has been often been applied in a random and confusing way. One reason is that the Supreme Court's ambiguous ruling in 1978 Allen Bakke case, the last time court addressed affirmative action in public universities. The court at the time ruled the University of California at Davis could not hold a quota of places for minorities. But writing in the case, the late Justice Lewis Powell wrote, "The goal of achieving a diverse student body is sufficiently compelling to justify consideration of race ... under some circumstances." Since then, federal courts around the country have offered conflicting opinions on the legality of affirmative action. In legal briefs filed with the Supreme Court, lawyers from both sides argued now is the time for the justices to give a clear, definitive ruling on the issue. A ruling from the bench is likely to come by June. The law school case is Grutter v. Bollinger (Docket number 02-241). The undergraduate case is Gratz v. Bollinger (Docket number 02-516).
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