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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Mismatch Myth In U.S. Higher Education: A Synthesis Of The Empirical Evidence At The Law School And Undergraduate Levels, William C. Kidder, Richard O. Lempert
The Mismatch Myth In U.S. Higher Education: A Synthesis Of The Empirical Evidence At The Law School And Undergraduate Levels, William C. Kidder, Richard O. Lempert
Book Chapters
Opponents of affirmative action in higher education commonly cite two principles to justify their opposition. One is that admissions to institutions of higher education should be based on "merit," which is often treated by critics of affirmative action as consisting of little more than test score results and high school or undergraduate grades. The second is the legal and moral imperative of not making consequential decisions based on race. We shall not address these principles except to note that others have shown that they do not make the case against affirmative action (Carbado & Harris 2008, Shultz & Zedeck 2011, …
Place, Not Race: Affirmative Action And The Geography Of Educational Opportunity, Sheryll Cashin
Place, Not Race: Affirmative Action And The Geography Of Educational Opportunity, Sheryll Cashin
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Ultimately, I argue that one important response to the demise of race-based affirmative action should be to incorporate the experience of segregation into diversity strategies. A college applicant who has thrived despite exposure to poverty in his school or neighborhood deserves special consideration. Those blessed to come of age in poverty-free havens do not. I conclude that use of place, rather than race, in diversity programming will better approximate the structural disadvantages many children of color actually endure, while enhancing the possibility that we might one day move past the racial resentment that affirmative action engenders. While I propose substituting …
The Quixotic Search For Race-Neutral Alternatives, Michael E. Rosman
The Quixotic Search For Race-Neutral Alternatives, Michael E. Rosman
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
The Supreme Court has stated that the narrow-tailoring inquiry of the Equal Protection Clause’s strict scrutiny analysis of racially disparate treatment by state actors requires courts to consider whether the defendant seriously considered race-neutral alternatives before adopting the race-conscious program at issue. This article briefly examines what that means in the context of race-conscious admissions programs at colleges and universities. Part I sets forth the basic concepts that the Supreme Court uses to analyze race-conscious decision-making by governmental actors and describes the role of “race-neutral alternatives” in that scheme. Part II examines the nature of “race-neutral alternatives” and identifies its …
Thinking Hard About 'Race-Neutral' Admissions, Richard H. Sander, Aaron Danielson
Thinking Hard About 'Race-Neutral' Admissions, Richard H. Sander, Aaron Danielson
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Our exploration is organized as follows. In Part I, we sympathetically consider the very difficult dilemmas facing higher education leaders. Understanding the often irreconcilable pressures that constrain university administrators is essential if we are to envision the plausible policies they might undertake. In Part II, we draw on a range of data to illustrate some of the “properties” of admissions systems and, in particular, the ways in which race, SES, and academic preparation interact dynamically both within individual schools and across the educational spectrum. Partly because the questions we examine here have been so little studied, ideal data does not …
The 'Compelling Government Interest' In School Diversity: Rebuilding The Case For An Affirmative Government Role, Philip Tegeler
The 'Compelling Government Interest' In School Diversity: Rebuilding The Case For An Affirmative Government Role, Philip Tegeler
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
How far does Justice Kennedy’s “moral and ethical obligation” to avoid racial isolation extend? Does the obligation flow primarily from Supreme Court case law, does it derive from an evolving consensus in the social sciences, or does it also have a statutory basis in Title VI and other federal law? In addition to its value as a justification for non-individualized, race-conscious remedial efforts by state and local governments, does the compelling interest identified in Parents Involved also suggest an affirmative duty on the part of the federal government? And if so, how far does this affirmative duty extend, and how …
Fisher V. Texas: The Limits Of Exhaustion And The Future Of Race-Conscious University Admissions, John A. Powell, Stephen Menendian
Fisher V. Texas: The Limits Of Exhaustion And The Future Of Race-Conscious University Admissions, John A. Powell, Stephen Menendian
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
This Article investigates the potential ramifications of Fisher v. Texas and the future of race-conscious university admissions. Although one cannot predict the ultimate significance of the Fisher decision, its brief and pregnant statements of law portends an increasingly perilous course for traditional affirmative action programs. Part I explores the opinions filed in Fisher, with a particular emphasis on Justice Kennedy’s opinion on behalf of the Court. We focus on the ways in which the Fisher decision departs from precedent, proscribes new limits on the use of race in university admissions, and tightens requirements for narrow tailoring. Part II investigates the …
Doing Affirmative Action, Stephen Clowney
Doing Affirmative Action, Stephen Clowney
Michigan Law Review First Impressions
Sometime this year the Supreme Court will announce its holding in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, a case that asks whether colleges may continue to consider race when making admissions decisions. Most Court watchers predict that the five conservative justices will vote to curtail the use of racial preferences. Lost in the weighty discussions about the scope of the Equal Protection Clause and the meaning of the Civil Rights struggle is any clear and concise explanation of how selective colleges actually make admissions decisions and how they work to fulfill the goals of affirmative action. This Essay seeks …
Grutter's Denouement: Three Templates From The Roberts Court, Ellen D. Katz
Grutter's Denouement: Three Templates From The Roberts Court, Ellen D. Katz
Articles
Precedent from the Roberts Court shows the Justices taking three distinct approaches to precedent they dislike. Each provides a template for the Court to criticize race-based affirmative action in higher education, as Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin is widely expected to do. Most narrowly, the Court might use Fisher to issue a warning, much like it did in 2009 when it sidestepped a constitutional challenge to the Voting Rights Act; under this approach, the opinion would spell out why the Justices think the diversity celebrated in Grutter v. Bollinger no longer provides sufficient justification for the use of …
The Promise Of Grutter: Diverse Interactions At The University Of Michigan Law School, Meera E. Deo
The Promise Of Grutter: Diverse Interactions At The University Of Michigan Law School, Meera E. Deo
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
In Grutter v. Bollinger, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld affirmative action at the University of Michigan Law School on the grounds of educational diversity. Yet the Court's assumption that admitting diverse students into law school would result in improved race relations, livelier classroom conversations, and better professional outcomes for students has never been empirically tested. This Article relies on survey and focus group data collected at the University of Michigan Lav School campus itself in March 2010 to examine not only whether, but how diversity affects learning. The data indicate both that there are sufficient numbers of students of color …
Determining The (In)Determinable: Race In Brazil And The United States, D. Wendy Greene
Determining The (In)Determinable: Race In Brazil And The United States, D. Wendy Greene
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
In recent years, the Brazilian states of Rio de Janeiro, So Paulo, and Mato Grasso du Sol have implemented race-conscious affirmative action programs in higher education. These states established admissions quotas in public universities for Afro-Brazilians or afrodescendentes. As a result, determining who is "Black'' has become a complex yet important undertaking in Brazil. Scholars and the general public alike have claimed that the determination of Blackness in Brazil is different than in the United States; determining Blackness in the United States is allegedly a simpler task than in Brazil. In Brazil it is widely acknowledged that most Brazilians are …
Affirmative Action & Negative Action: How Jian Li's Case Can Benefit Asian Americans, Adrian Liu
Affirmative Action & Negative Action: How Jian Li's Case Can Benefit Asian Americans, Adrian Liu
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
In October 2006, Asian American student Jian D filed a civil rights complaint against Princeton University claiming that Princeton's affirmative action policies were discriminatory. Li argues that affirmative action gives preferences to non-Asian minorities at the expense of Asian students. Li's case aligns the interests of Asian Americans with Whites who challenge affirmative action and suggests that such policies are inherently discriminatory because they exclude students based on race and sacrifice merit. This Article argues that Li's exclusion is not due to affirmative action but is likely due to "negative action," the unfavorable treatment of Asian Americans relative to Whites. …
Education And Labor Relations: Asian Americans And Blacks As Pawns In The Furtherance Of White Hegemony, Xiaofeng Stephanie Da
Education And Labor Relations: Asian Americans And Blacks As Pawns In The Furtherance Of White Hegemony, Xiaofeng Stephanie Da
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
Asian Americans and Blacks have been, and continue to be, racialized relative to each other in our society. Asian Americans and Blacks have come to occupy marginalized positions as the polarized ends on the economic spectrums of education and labor relations, with an expanding "Whiteness" as the filler in the middle as Whites manipulate the differing interests of both subordinated groups to align with White (the dominant group's) interests. Although Whites purport to champion the interests of one subordinate group over the other, in reality the racialization of Asian Americans and Blacks in our country is rooted in the preservation …
Without Color Of Law: The Losing Race Against Colorblindness In Michigan, Khaled Ali Beydoun
Without Color Of Law: The Losing Race Against Colorblindness In Michigan, Khaled Ali Beydoun
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
This Essay examines affirmative action, while discussing its fall in California, Washington State, and ultimately Michigan.
Negative Action Versus Affirmative Action: Asian Pacific Americans Are Still Caught In The Crossfire, William C. Kidder
Negative Action Versus Affirmative Action: Asian Pacific Americans Are Still Caught In The Crossfire, William C. Kidder
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
The author concludes that Espenshade and Chung's inattention to the distinction between negative action and affirmative action effectively marginalizes APAs and contributes to a skewed and divisive public discourse about affirmative action, one in which APAs are falsely portrayed as conspicuous adversaries of diversity in higher education. The author will also argue that there is ample reason to be concerned about the harmful effects of divisive and empirically unsupported claims about APAs influencing the public debate over affirmative action, particularly in Michigan, where an anti-affirmative action initiative nearly identical to California's Proposition 209 will appear on the November 2006 ballot. …
The Diversity Rationale: Unprovable, Uncompelling, Brian N. Lizotte
The Diversity Rationale: Unprovable, Uncompelling, Brian N. Lizotte
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
Student body diversity-and the purported educational benefits diversity bestows- is the final Supreme Court-endorsed justification for affirmative action by public universities. Are the benefits of diversity indeed "substantial," as the Grutter majority claimed? The author analyzes the social scientific research upon which the Court relied in articulating the diversity interest. By critiquing its theory and methodology, the author shows how the research fails to prove educational benefits; and by considering the logic underlying social science generally, he shows how the causal relationship is, technically, not provable. The author questions, then, how the diversity interest can possibly be compelling.
Post-Admissions Educational Programming In A Post-Grutter World: A Response To Professor Brown, Evan H. Caminker
Post-Admissions Educational Programming In A Post-Grutter World: A Response To Professor Brown, Evan H. Caminker
Articles
When asked to provide commentary on another scholar's reflections on Grutterl and Gratz and affirmative action, I am usually struck by two fears. First, because so much ink has been spilled on this topic, I worry the main presenter will have nothing new and interesting to say. Today this worry has been put to rest; I am so pleased that Professor Dorothy Brown offers a number of novel and intriguing observations and, in the end, advances a novel and intriguing proposal about the role Critical Race Theory ought to play in our nation's law school classrooms. Second, for the same …
Challenging The Bounds Of Education Litigation: Castaneda V. Regents And Daniel V. California, Alan E. Schoenfeld
Challenging The Bounds Of Education Litigation: Castaneda V. Regents And Daniel V. California, Alan E. Schoenfeld
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
This Note argues that by combining the normative suasion of educational finance litigation with the political imperatives manifested in affirmative action law and practice, those who seek to improve the quality of secondary education and expand access to higher education would likely effect greater change than they would working independently. Under the appropriate political and legal circumstances, access to public higher education ought to be treated as something akin to a fundamental right, the unequal distribution of which constitutes a violation of equal protection for students of color and for economically disadvantaged students. Using the Castaneda and Daniel lawsuits to …
Multiracial Identity, Monoracial Authenticity & Racial Privacy: Towards An Adequate Theory Of Mulitracial Resistance, Maurice R. Dyson
Multiracial Identity, Monoracial Authenticity & Racial Privacy: Towards An Adequate Theory Of Mulitracial Resistance, Maurice R. Dyson
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
This Article is divided into five parts. Part I briefly places the significance of the Supreme Court's affirmative action ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger in context, particularly the implications of its recommended twenty-five year timeframe in recognizing racial diversity. Part II examines the dangerous consequences of implicit assumptions underlying the RPI. More specifically, I investigate the potential ramifications the RPI would have had upon multiple sectors of our society, including healthcare, education, and law enforcement. In the process, I attempt to demonstrate that the concept of racial privacy is a strategic misnomer intended not to protect one's privacy, but rather …
A Glimpse Behind And Beyond Grutter, Evan H. Caminker
A Glimpse Behind And Beyond Grutter, Evan H. Caminker
Articles
Many people have suggested that the recent battle over affirmative action was a defining moment for the contemporary relevance of Brown v. Board of Education and that it would determine the promise and potential for widespread societal integration. In my remarks, I want to comment upon a couple of comparisons and links between the Brown, Bakke, Grutter, and Gratz cases.
Constitutional Sunsetting?: Justice O'Connor's Closing Comments On Grutter, Vikram David Amar, Evan H. Caminker
Constitutional Sunsetting?: Justice O'Connor's Closing Comments On Grutter, Vikram David Amar, Evan H. Caminker
Articles
Most Supreme Court watchers were unsurprised that Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's vote proved pivotal in resolving the University of Michigan affirmative action cases; indeed, Justice O'Connor has been in the majority in almost every case involving race over the past decade, and was in the majority in each and every one of the 5-4 decisions the Court handed down across a broad range of difficult issues last Term. Some smaller number of observers were unsurprised that Justice O'Connor decided (along with the four Justices who in the past have voted to allow latitude with regard to race-based affirmative action programs) …
A General Theory Of Cultural Diversity, Steven A. Ramirez
A General Theory Of Cultural Diversity, Steven A. Ramirez
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
This Article seeks to extend the analysis of these developments in the corporate world to anti-discrimination law under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This Article will show that discrimination based upon cultural insights or experiences is distinct from race discrimination and will articulate a general theory of why and under what circumstances this holds true. The difference between culture-based discrimination and using culture as a proxy for race (Which would then be race discrimination) requires a careful and non-mythological understanding of what race is, and what race is not. Moreover, showing that culture discrimination is not prohibited …
Race, Class, Caste…? Rethinking Affirmative Action, Clark D. Cunningham, N.R. Madhava Menon
Race, Class, Caste…? Rethinking Affirmative Action, Clark D. Cunningham, N.R. Madhava Menon
Michigan Law Review
Many who oppose affirmative action programs in the United States because they use "racial" categories such as black, African American, or Latino, claim that equally effective and more equitable programs can be developed using only class categories, such as "low income." A key test case for the "race v. class" debate is admission to law schools, made urgent by recent legal prohibitions on the use of "race" in the admission procedures to state universities in California, Washington, and Texas. An empirical study by Linda Wightman, the former director of research for the Law School Admissions Council (LSAC), has shown that …
Minority Preferences Reconsidered, Terrance Sandalow
Minority Preferences Reconsidered, Terrance Sandalow
Reviews
During the academic year 1965-66, at the height of the civil rights movement, the University of Michigan Law School faculty looked around and saw not a single African-American student. The absence of any black students was not, it should hardly need saying, attributable to a policy of purposeful exclusion. A black student graduated from the Law School as early as 1870, and in the intervening years a continuous flow of African-American students, though not a large number, had been admitted and graduated. Some went on to distinguished careers in the law.
Foxes Guarding The Chicken Coop: Intervention As Of Right And The Defense Of Civil Rights Remedies, Alan Jenkins
Foxes Guarding The Chicken Coop: Intervention As Of Right And The Defense Of Civil Rights Remedies, Alan Jenkins
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
This article focuses on the recent spate of cases in which educational institutions on the grounds that their race-conscious admissions policies are unconstitutional. The author analyzes the role of minority students and organizations who are the beneficiaries of those polices at the defendant institutions and their recent attempts to intervene in the lawsuits pursuant to Rule 24 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. First, the author argues that under the traditional interpretation of Rule 24(a); intervention of right should be granted to minority students and organizations in the great majority of instances. Second, the author looks at the reasons …
Rejoinder (Response To Article By William G. Bowen And Derek Bok), Terrance Sandalow
Rejoinder (Response To Article By William G. Bowen And Derek Bok), Terrance Sandalow
Articles
In The Shape of the River, presidents Bowen and Bok pronounce the race-sensitive admission policies adopted by selective undergraduate schools a resounding success. The evidence they adduce in support of that conclusion primarily concerns the performance of African-American students in and after college. But not all African-American students in those institutions were admitted in consequence of minority preference policies. Some, perhaps many, would have been admitted under race-neutral policies. I argued at several points in my review that since these students might be expected to be academically more successful than those admitted because of their race, the evidence on which …
"Reverse Discrimination" And Higher Education Faculty, Joyce A. Hughes
"Reverse Discrimination" And Higher Education Faculty, Joyce A. Hughes
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
In this Article, the author critiques the use of "reverse discrimination" claims by White plaintiffs to challenge the hiring of Blacks in institutions of higher education. The author argues that "reverse discrimination" is a myth since no such claim is possible when one White candidate is selected over another; assumptions of inferiority are implicit where such a claim is made when a Black candiate is selected over a White candidate. In other words, allowing such a claim, even if ultimately unsuccessful, implies a presumption of superiority on the part of the White candidate. For this reason, the author argues that …
Affirmative Action: Where Is It Coming From And Where Is It Going?, Denise Page Hood
Affirmative Action: Where Is It Coming From And Where Is It Going?, Denise Page Hood
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
A review of We Wont Go Back: Making the Case for Affirmative Action by Charles R. Lawrence III & Mari J. Matsuda
College Admission And Affirmative Action- Consequences And Alternatives, Ihan Kim
College Admission And Affirmative Action- Consequences And Alternatives, Ihan Kim
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
A review of The Shape of the River: Long Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions by Derek Bok & William Bowen
Race-Conscious Diversity Admissions Programs: Furthering A Compelling Interest, Marty B. Lorenzo
Race-Conscious Diversity Admissions Programs: Furthering A Compelling Interest, Marty B. Lorenzo
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
This Article argues that narrowly tailored, race-conscious admissions programs can be employed to achieve a more diverse student body and consequently a more enlightened and egalitarian society. An admissions body which looks beyond traditional academic indicators and explores the whole person of each applicant will matriculate a group of students with a wide variety of race, gender, class and other backgrounds, thereby fostering a robust exchange of ideas among these students. Pointing to the enduring precedential value of Bakke as well as the ideological makeup of the Supreme Court, this Article asserts that the Courts would likely uphold a program …