Gratz v. Bollinger

2020 ◽  
pp. 215-242
Author(s):  
Matthew Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
University Of Michigan ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Undergraduate Admissions ◽  
Business Interests ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Selective Incorporation ◽  
The University

This chapter studies Gratz v. Bollinger, which challenged the racially attentive undergraduate admissions practices of the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts in the University of Michigan (UM). Grutter v. Bollinger, which challenged the Law School's admissions practices, was filed soon thereafter. These cases put UM on a crash course with the Supreme Court. The chapter then highlights UM's defense of affirmative action, showing how the university's co-optation of racial justice aligned with the rightward shift of the Supreme Court since the 1980s. UM leaders' preference for diversity over the social justice rationale, their discomfort with enrollment targets, their efforts to make affirmative action serve business interests, and their selective incorporation of social science that promoted the benefits of interracial contact all made UM's chances of swaying at least one conservative justice more likely.

Case Study 1: The Gratz and Grutter Supreme Court Cases against the University of Michigan

2020 ◽  
pp. 115-154
Author(s):  
J. Scott Carter ◽  
Cameron D. Lippard
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
University Of Michigan ◽  
Higher Education Admissions ◽  
First Case ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Color Blind ◽  
The University

The purpose of this chapter is to understand arguments put forth by these social authorities (individuals and groups) in support and opposition to affirmative action within a prominent debate on affirmative action in higher education admissions. We are particularly interested in advocacy groups that have the ability and resources not afforded to most individuals to lobby the Supreme Court. We used the Gratz v. Bollinger et al. and Grutter v. Bollinger et al. U.S. Supreme Court cases as the site of the first case study. We look at how these entities deployed specific arguments and rhetoric within court documents to frame affirmative action to Supreme Court Justices. In particular, while all frames were considered, we look at two discursive frames prominent in the literature and how they were used by supporters and opponents of the policy: color-blind and threat frames. Findings demonstrate that while supporters often used color-blind arguments (and some threat as well), the opponent briefs were saturated with both color-blind frames.

From Discrimination to Affirmative Action

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucas A. Powe
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Court Case ◽  
Board Of Education ◽  
Action Program ◽  
Primary Case ◽  
Undergraduate Admissions ◽  
University Of Texas ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Supreme Court Case ◽  
The University

This chapter discusses the legal battles involving the University of Texas School of Law and its affirmative action program. In the wake of its success in 1944 in the all-white primary case, Smith v. Allwright, the Texas NAACP called for the integration of Texas's flagship university in Austin. Some months later Thurgood Marshall wrote a letter to Austin's only African American lawyer asking for information about how to apply to the UT School of Law. The chapter examines the Supreme Court case of Heman Marion Sweatt that produced a major stepping-stone toward Brown v. Board of Education, along with another case involving UT's undergraduate admissions that reaffirmed a state's right to implement affirmative action policies. In particular, it analyzes McLaurin v. Regents and Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, along with the Texas legislature's response to Hopwood v. Texas in the form of the “10% rule.”

scholarly journals Perspectives on Affirmative Action in Academic Dental Institutions: The U.S. Supreme Court Rulings in the University of Michigan Cases

2004 ◽  
Vol 68 (9) ◽  
pp. 932-937 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melanie R. Peterson ◽  
Joan E. Kowolik ◽  
Gary Coleman ◽  
Susan Dietrich ◽  
Ana Karina Mascarenhas ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
University Of Michigan ◽  
Supreme Court Rulings ◽  
The University ◽  
The U.S

RACE AND AFFIRMING OPPORTUNITY IN THE BARACK OBAMA ERA

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Julius Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Racial Diversity ◽  
Faculty Of Color ◽  
University Of Michigan ◽  
Life Chances ◽  
Important Principle ◽  
Racial Preferences ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Face ◽  
The University

AbstractI first discuss the Obama administration's efforts to promote racial diversity on college campuses in the face of recent court challenges to affirmative action. I then analyze opposition in this country to “racial preferences” as a way to overcome inequality. I follow that with a discussion of why class-based affirmative action, as a response to cries from conservatives to abolish “racial preferences,” would not be an adequate substitute for race-based affirmative action. Instead of class-based affirmative action, I present an argument for opportunity enhancing affirmative action programs that rely on flexible, merit-based criteria of evaluation as opposed to numerical guidelines or quotas. Using the term “affirmative opportunity” to describe such programs, I illustrate their application with three cases: the University of California, Irvine's revised affirmative action admissions procedure; the University of Michigan Law School's affirmative action program, which was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2003; and the hiring and promotion of faculty of color at colleges and universities as seen in how I myself benefited from a type of affirmative action based on flexible merit-based criteria at the University of Chicago in the early 1970s. I conclude by relating affirmative opportunity programs for people of color to the important principle of “equality of life chances.”

Affirmative Action for Whom?

2020 ◽  
pp. 144-163
Author(s):  
Matthew Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Black Students ◽  
University Of Michigan ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Student Body ◽  
Student Activists ◽  
Suburban Areas ◽  
Working Class Students ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The University

This chapter addresses the new affirmative action policies in the University of Michigan (UM), which ultimately led to the racial retrenchment of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Almost all the enrollment gains made since the Black Action Movement (BAM) were reversed. During these years, black enrollment fell from 7.25 percent to 4.9 percent of UM's student body by 1983. Just as important, the economic backgrounds of black students at UM changed, as UM officials shifted their recruiting, admissions, and financial aid policies to focus on bringing middle-class black students from suburban areas around the country. Even as black enrollment began to rise again in the mid-1980s, UM would never again craft its affirmative action policies to target working-class students in Detroit. Ultimately, the policies administrators introduced in the late 1970s revealed that the co-optation of racial justice was a long-term project that evolved to protect the university's priorities as conditions changed. The declining power of black student activists also gave administrators more control over how the university would respond to the changing environment. By the end of the 1970s, the character of affirmative action looked nothing like BAM's vision of racial justice.

scholarly journals Texas A&M University School of Law’s Distinguished Practitioner Speaker Series

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 801-810
Author(s):  
Maureen E. Mahoney
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
University Of Michigan ◽  
Law Firm ◽  
Student Body ◽  
Educational Benefits ◽  
Diverse Student Body ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Diverse Student ◽  
The University ◽  
Arthur Andersen

Maureen E. Mahoney is the founder and a member of the Supreme Court and appellate practice at the international law firm of Latham & Watkins. Among her numerous achievements, Ms. Mahoney represented the University of Michigan before the Supreme Court and won the landmark case upholding the constitutionality of admissions programs that consider race as one of many factors in order to attain the educational benefits of a diverse student body. She also successfully argued on behalf of Arthur Andersen in a Supreme Court challenge to the firm’s criminal conviction. Additionally, she has consistently been recognized as one of the top lawyers in Washington D.C. The Texas A&M Law Review is incredibly grateful to Ms. Mahoney for allowing it to publish her comments from the law school’s Inaugural Distinguished Practitioners Speaker Series in spring 2013.

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