Today's Law School Ruling

R rhisiart at earthlink.net
Sat May 18 11:42:04 PDT 2002


do you believe the decision will be appealed? any thoughts about how it will fare if it is appealed?

thanks, R

----- Original Message -----

From: Luke Weiger

To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com

Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2002 4:56 PM

Subject: Fw: Today's Law School Ruling

----- Original Message -----

From: "B. Joseph White" <bjosephwhite at umich.edu>

Today, we have learned that the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has found in

our favor in the Grutter case and determined our Law School admissions

policy to be constitutional. A majority of the court said our admissions

program meets the guidelines established by the Supreme Court in the Bakke

decision. The full decision can be found on the web at

http://pacer.ca6.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/newopn.pl?puid= or at

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=6th&navby=case&no=02a

0170p.

This is a great day for the University of Michigan and for all of higher

education, as well as for the numerous corporations, educational groups, and

others who filed amicus briefs in support of the University. I am pleased

that the court recognized that diversity brings educational benefits to all

students. This is part of the University's historic and significant

commitment to diversity in all its facets, and today's decision reaffirms

our community's long-standing values. We must prepare our students to learn

and to lead in the world's most diverse democracy.

The court noted that our Law School admissions policy, adopted by the

faculty in 1992, is "virtually indistinguishable" from the Harvard plan held

out as a model in the Bakke decision. The court found that our policy

considers each applicant as an individual in making admissions decisions,

and does not shield any applicant from competing with the rest of the

applicant pool. "The record demonstrates that the Law School does not

employ a quota for underrepresented minority students," the majority opinion

stated. "Essentially, both the Law School's admission policy and the

Harvard plan attend to the numbers of underrepresented minority students to

ensure that all students---minority and majority alike---will be able to

enjoy the benefits of an academically diverse student body."

The case challenging our undergraduate admissions policy (Gratz v.

Bollinger) has not yet been decided by the appeals court. As you may

recall, the district court previously upheld our undergraduate admissions

program.

I am sure these court decisions will generate many questions within our

community. Once decisions have been rendered in both cases, we will be

working to plan a public forum where experts will be available to provide

analysis of the cases and respond to questions about their impact. Please

watch the University's web site at http://www.umich.edu/~urel/admissions/

for details about this event.

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