The U.S. Supreme Court's Decisions in the University of Michigan Cases

Americans for a Fair Chance - January 1, 2004

The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), the nation’s oldest, largest, and most diverse civil and human rights coalition representing more than 180 member organizations, and its sister organization, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund (LCCREF), the research, education, and communications arm of the civil rights coalition, were just two of the many organizations that worked to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the University of Michigan’s equal opportunity programs.

In a closely watched decision, the Supreme Court reaffirmed that universities may take race into consideration as one factor among many when selecting incoming students. In a 5 to 4 opinion written by Justice O’Connor, the Supreme Court in Grutter v. Bollinger specifically endorsed Justice Lewis Powell’s view in 1978’s Regents of the University of California v. Bakke that student body diversity is a compelling state interest that can justify using race in university admissions. The Supreme Court thus resolved a split among the lower courts as to Bakke’s value as binding precedent.

Background

Ever since the Supreme Court’s 1978 decision in Bakke, educational institutions throughout the country have utilized various equal opportunity programs as a means of counteracting the effects of past racial discrimination and providing greater educational opportunities to racial and ethnic minorities.

Opponents of equal opportunity, however, have attacked these policies in the federal courts with increasing frequency. In 2002, the Supreme Court, for the first time since Bakke, considered a challenge on equal opportunity policies at the University of Michigan.

In Grutter v. Bollinger, the Supreme Court upheld the University of Michigan Law School's equal opportunity program. Citing Brown v. Board of Education for the proposition that "Education...is the very foundation of good citizenship," the Supreme Court stated, "The diffusion of knowledge and opportunity through public institutions of higher education must be accessible to all individuals regardless of race or ethnicity."

Gratz v. Bollinger involved a separate challenge to the undergraduate admissions program used at the University of Michigan, which differed from the program used at the law school. The undergraduate program used a system that assigns points for certain factors including race, while the law school took a more holistic approach, resulting in an overall score for each applicant. In a 6 to 3 opinion written by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, the Court held in Gratz that the university's use of race in this program was not narrowly tailored to achieve the university's asserted interest in diversity.

Taken together, Grutter, Gratz, and Justice Powell’s opinion in Bakke establish that the U.S. Constitution permits race-conscious admissions policies when they are carefully designed and consider race as part of a flexible and individualized review of all applicants.

The Value of Diversity

In Grutter, a clear majority of the Court endorsed Justice Powell’s diversity rationale. Justice O’Connor's opinion points to diversity’s "substantial, important, and laudable educational benefits" and relies heavily on social science and other evidence showing that diversity "promotes learning outcomes and better prepares students for an increasingly diverse workforce, for society, and for the legal profession."

Moreover, while Justice Powell had only focused on the educational value of diversity, the Grutter opinion recognizes the important role that diversity plays in training the country's leaders, stating, "In order to cultivate a set of leaders with legitimacy in the eyes of the citizenry, it is necessary that the path to leadership be visibly open to talented and qualified individuals of every race and ethnicity."

Reinforcing the goals of equal opportunity, the Supreme Court stated, "Effective participation by members of all racial and ethnic groups in the civic life of our Nation is essential if the dream of one Nation, indivisible, is to be realized."

The Role of Amici

Many commentators noted the important role of the friend-of-the-court briefs in the case. While many of the briefs made very similar points, the LCCR/LCCREF brief had several passages that were very similar to the language adopted by Justice O’Connor in the Grutter opinion.

U.S. Supreme Court Decision (O’Connor)	LCCR/LCCREF
"[M]ajor American businesses have made clear that the skills needed in today’s increasingly global marketplace can only be developed through exposure to widely diverse people, cultures, ideas and viewpoints. (Brief for 3M. et al.)" (p. 18)	"Corporate leaders - running businesses, selling products, and promoting innovation for a diverse populace - likewise require a practical appreciation of the differences and similarities of both their colleagues and their customers. See, e.g., Amicus Br. Of General Motors Corp..." (p.16)
"[S]tudent body diversity promotes learning outcomes and better prepares students for an increasingly diverse workforce and society, and better prepares them as professionals." (p.18)	["Writing for a unanimous Court, Chief Justice Burger recognized over 30 years ago that] educators should have discretion to take race into account ‘in order to prepare students to live in a pluralistic society’...." (p. 16) "The contributions of a diverse learning environment to future leadership are significant in professional and graduate studies as well as college. Students preparing for professional practice benefit from training in environments that resemble the world in which they will work." (p. 16)
"We have repeatedly acknowledged the overriding importance of preparing students for work and citizenship, describing education as pivotal to ‘sustaining our political and cultural heritage’ with a fundamental role in maintaining the fabric of society." Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 221 (1982). (p.19)	"Education promotes the civic values necessary to deal with the diversity of American society, to advance the historic goal of national unity, and to draw strength from the pluralism of our society...education helps to ‘maintain [] the fabric of our society.’" Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 221 (1982). (p. 18)
"This Court has long recognized that ‘education ... is the very foundation of good citizenship’. ... For this reason, the diffusion of knowledge and opportunity through public institutions of higher education must be accessible to all individuals regardless of race or ethnicity." (p. 19)	"The unique place of education in American society, its centrality to the achievement of the national goals ... and to tackling the challenges and opportunities posed by the pluralism of American society, substantially elevates the importance of diversity in education." (p. 13)
"[U]niversities, and in particular, law schools, represent the training ground for a large number of our Nation’s leaders." Sweatt v. Painter... "Individuals with law degrees occupy roughly half the state governorships, more than half the seats in the United States House of Representatives...The pattern is even more striking when it comes to highly selective law schools." (p. 20)	"Universities are the training grounds for the leaders of American society. Their mission is to produce young men and women equipped to deal with the challenges of modern life and to better our social order..." (p.13); Professional training enriched by the varied experiences of a diverse student body better prepares students to serve their communities. See, e.g., Sweatt v. Painter (p. 16). "Preserving diversity in legal education is particularly imperative given the leadership roles that attorneys historically have assumed in government and other civic contexts." (p. 17)
"The Law School does not premise its need for critical mass on "any belief that minority students always (or even consistently) express some characteristic minority viewpoint on any issue...To the contrary, diminishing the force of such stereotypes is both a crucial part of the Law School’s mission and one that it cannot accomplish with only a token number of minority students. Just as growing up in a particular region or having particular professional experiences is likely to affect an individual’s views, so too is one’s own, unique experience of being a racial minority in a society, like our own, in which race unfortunately still matters." (p. 21).	"[As these institutions concluded] fostering a diverse student body creates an educational community of individuals who bring different personal histories to their social interactions, to their extracurricular activities, and to their studies. It does not assume that race and ethnicity correlate with viewpoint, any more than geography and economic status do. Rather by expanding the horizons of students who may not have previously interacted with those of different races and backgrounds, diversity in higher education enables students to share experiences and to learn firsthand how people are the same as well as how they differ." (p. 14)
"[Percentage plans] may preclude the university from conducting the individualized assessments necessary to assemble a student body that is not just racially diverse, but diverse along all the qualities valued by the university." (p. 28)	"Percentage plans override the individualized judgment of educators and admissions officials...[They] are a far cruder alternative than considering race as one of many factors in admissions decisions." (p. 27)