RACIAL DIVERSITY AT COLLEGE

RACIAL DIVERSITY AT COLLEGE
Providence Journal: A federal district court judge in Detroit last month approved the University of Michigan's admissions policy, which, to achieve diversity, grants explicit preferences to applicants from specified racial and ethnic groups. Judge Patrick Duggan's ruling regarding public universities seems to counter a 1996 appeals court judgment, in the Hopwood case, that the race-based admissions preferences aimed at achieving diversity at the University of Texas law school were unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court probably will have to resolve the matter.
A 23-year-old white woman, Jennifer Gratz, on applying for admission, was denied entrance in 1995 into what is generally considered the university's flagship campus, in Ann Arbor. (She subsequently attended the less prestigious campus in Dearborn.) She appealed her rejection from Ann Arbor on the basis that the state was denying her the equal protection of the laws required by the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Bonus points: Candidates are rated on a 150-point scale. While mainly judged on their academic background, like all others, applicants from what are considered "underrepresented minorities" -- specifically blacks, Hispanics and American Indians -- are automatically given 20 bonus points on account of their racial/ethnic origins.
(By the way, this intentionally leaves out Asian-American applicants, even though they are an obvious racial minority. Evidently, sufficient numbers of them -- whatever that means -- qualify for admission without needing bonus points for their racial origins.)
Applicants can also receive bonus points for a variety of other factors: e.g., those from poor families, 20 points; recruited athletes, 20 points; Michigan residents, 10 points; children of alumni, 4 points; those with special personal achievements, 3 points.
However, these factors are not based on racial or ethnic background. A recruited athlete, say, gets the extra 20 points regardless of race or ethnicity -- although, obviously, recruits for the basketball team are more likely to be black than white, and vice versa for hockey recruits. As a result, the only aspect of the bonus system challenged on constitutional grounds was its explicit use of racial and ethnic categories to grant -- or withhold -- extra points.
In upholding the University of Michigan's admissions system, Judge Duggan emphasized what he considered the decisive benefits, for all concerned, of a racially and ethnically diverse student body. We believe that such purported benefits are real, although vastly exaggerated. And we believe that diversity can be measured in many ways, perhaps most importantly by diversity of ideas and interests, rather than confining it, in a rather condescending way, to skin color and/or ethnic affiliation.
The question is not so much the state's allegedly "compelling interest" in promoting diversity at Ann Arbor but its constitutional duty to grant applicants -- such as, in this case, Jennifer Gratz -- the equal protection of the laws.