When a group of Republican state lawmakers last summer mounted a
public campaign to find potential plaintiffs for a class-action lawsuit
against the University of Michigan’s affirmative action admissions
policies, Jennifer Gratz responded immediately. Gratz, a policeman’s
daughter and former high school homecoming queen, had been rejected by
Michigan in 1995 despite strong grades and high standardized-test
scores.
“When I was turned down, I was disappointed and embarrassed,” she
said in a recent interview. After receiving Michigan’s rejection
letter, Gratz, who is White, discussed with her parents the idea of
suing the school. “But it really wasn’t serious then. I knew we didn’t
have the resources.”
The resources and legal expertise that ultimately made the Michigan
lawsuit possible were provided by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for
Individual Rights (CIR), a conservative public-interest law firm that
over the past two years has mounted an all-out assault on university
affirmative action admissions policies.
Last year, CIR jolted the academic establishment with its stunning
legal victory in Hopwood v. State of Texas. It convinced the Fifth
Circuit Court of Appeals to, in effect, reverse long-standing Supreme
Court precedent that permits race to be considered as a “plus” in
admissions decisions. The Hopwood opinion is only binding law in the
Fifth judicial circuit which includes Texas, Mississippi, and
Louisiana. But it has been causing universities around the country to
reexamine their admissions policies.
Sensing that the academic establishment was on the ropes, CIR in
March sued the University of Washington Law School over its admissions
policies. The lawsuit against the University of Michigan undergraduate
program followed in October. And just this month, the Center filed a
separate lawsuit against the admissions policies at Michigan’s law
school. CIR’s rapid flurry of litigation has set in motion a legal
controversy that almost certainly will have to be resolved one day by
the U.S. Supreme Court.
“We’re trying to make clear to the higher education establishment
that they can’t just go on operating as if they’re above the law,” says
CIR spokesman Terence J. Pell. “Higher education officials know
perfectly well that their admissions policies are illegal and they just
go ahead and operate them anyway.”
Defying Neat Labels
