The University of Michigan Cases: Grutter v. Bollinger

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Discussion
Conclusion
References

Introduction

Background and History

Grutter v. Bollinger is a case where the United States Supreme Court defended affirmative action on the admissions policy of the University of Michigan Law School. The 5-4 verdict was announced on the 23^rd of June, 2003.

In 1996, the Grutter v. Bollinger case started with a white Michigan resident, Barbara Grutter who has a 3.8 GPA and a 161 Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) score, not being accepted in the University of Michigan Law School. Grutter makes contact with the Center for Individual Rights which filed suit on her behalf in December 1997, saying that the University discriminated against her through the basis of race in violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. She appealed in the case that the Law School is having preferences in admitting students according to race. Applicants from the underrepresented minority such as African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans are given the chance of being accepted in the law school more than white and Asian American applicants who has the same level of credentials. The complainant also said that the University has no valid reasons for being racial (University of Michigan, 1999).

On the other hand, another racial case was filed on the United States Supreme Court in the same year as the Grutter v. Bollinger case. It regards the positive action admissions policy of the University of Michigan undergraduate. The Supreme Court lined the point system of the University as too mechanistic and for that reason undemocratic.

According to The University of Michigan, the school used a 150-point scale to position applicants, with 100 points needed to assure the right of entry into the University. The School gave “underrepresented” racial groups like African-Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans, and guaranteed a 20-point bonus on this scale, and a perfect SAT score which was only worth 12 points as well. Jennifer Gratz and Patrick Hamacher applied for admission to the University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA); both are white residents of Michigan and petitioned for this case. The case was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan against the University of Michigan, the LSA, James Duderstadt who was the president of the University, and Lee Bollinger. Duderstadt considered Gratz’s application for further review while Bollinger considered the application of Hamacher also for further viewing. The complaint assumed “violations and threatened violations of the rights of the plaintiffs and the class they represent to equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment… and for racial discrimination” (University of Michigan, 1999).

Discussion

The Verdict of the Supreme Court

In the ruling of the court, majority of the opinion of Justice O’Connor seized that the United States Constitution does not forbid the law school’s intently modified application of racial preferences in the decision of admission to have an extra convincing interest in achieving the educational benefits in a diverse set of students. The Supreme Court said that the interest of the Law school in admitting the students to having racial preferences is a “tailored use” or modified way of thinking. O’Connor said that shortly, racial assenting action would no longer be obligatory in promoting diversities. It implied that positive action should not be allowed the stable rank and that in due course a “colorblind” policy should be put into practice. The judgment for the most part supported the position declared in Justice Powell’s agreement in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, which tolerates race to be a consideration in the policy of admission, but seized that quotas were against the law (Olivas, 1997).

For the two cases, the Supreme Court the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment permits a public university to consider the race of applicants in its admissions decisions. In the case of Grutter, the Court considered the admissions policy for the University of Michigan Law School, and in the case of Gratz; the Supreme Court struck down the undergraduate affirmative action program at the same University (Nochlin et al., 2002).

Applying a firm study in the case of Grutter, the Court permitted the law school’s approach. In the first place, it represented the interest of the state in achieving a racially diverse student body because of the educational benefits that flow from diversity. It then held that the law school’s admissions policy was narrowly tailored to achieve that end because, while giving some weight to the race of an applicant, it was not a quota and it guaranteed individualized consideration (Post et al., 1996).

While in the case of Gratz, on the other hand, the Court reached the reverse finale. Bound by the holding in Grutter that diversity is a compelling state interest, the Court held that undergraduate admissions policy was not narrowly tailored to meet that end, because the automatic assignment of twenty points to each applicant from an underrepresented minority group did not provide for any individualized consideration. Rather, the undergraduate approach made the factor of race decisive for virtually every minimally qualified underrepresented minority applicant (Milem, 2000).

Conclusion

Analysis

The researcher agreed that the verdict for Grutter was indeed an accurate and just decision while the result for the case of Gratz was a big oversight. The explanation has everything to do with the significance of judicial restraint or the idea that should have special power in the context of the policy of education, which should be set by educators such as professors or those who are in the position and not by the judges. Affirmative action, somehow, may or may not be a good thought, but the Constitution does not outlaw it. The Federal judges must tolerate educational institutions, because they are into political constraints to neglect or accept affirmative action as they think would fit. It is sarcastic indeed that the groups of conformists, who have been rightly doubtful about judicial activism, now clinch a tremendous form of judicial activism in their assault on affirmative action.

References

Milem, J.E (2000). Why race matters. Academe: The Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors, pp. 26-29.

Nochlin, L., & Solomon- Godeau, A. (2002). Sins of the Father. Art in America, pp. 92-101.

Olivas, M. A. (1997). Constitutional criteria: The Social Science and the common law of admissions decisions in higher education. University of Colorado Review, 68, 1065- 1121.

Post, R. & Rogin, M., eds. (1996, Summer). Race and Representation: Affirmative Action. REPRESENTATIONS, 55.

University of Michigan. (1999). The compelling need for Diversity in Higher Education. Ann Arbor: Author. 2001. Web.

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