Category: Politics & government

Whether we like it or not, the affirmative action rulings that brought the University of Michigan to national political limelight not too long ago refuse to die. This time, the issue appears on the ballot in form of Proposition 2:

ANN ARBOR, Mich., Oct. 25 — Three years after the Supreme Court heard Jennifer Gratz’s challenge to the University of Michigan’s affirmative action policy, she is still fighting racial preferences, this time in a Michigan ballot initiative.

Leaflets at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor urging voters to oppose the ballot initiative.

“We have a horrible history when it comes to race in this country,” said Ms. Gratz, 29, a white applicant who was wait-listed 11 years ago at the state’s flagship campus here. “But that doesn’t make it right to give preference to the son of a black doctor at the expense of a poor student whose parents didn’t go to college.”

The ballot initiative, Proposition 2, which would amend Michigan’s Constitution to bar public institutions from considering race or sex in public education, employment or contracting, has drawn wide opposition from the state’s civic establishment, including business and labor, the Democratic governor and her Republican challenger. But polls show voters are split, with significant numbers undecided or refusing to say where they stand.

Passage would probably reinvigorate challenges to a variety of affirmative action programs in other states. In California, where a similar proposition passed in 1996, the number of black students at the elite public universities has dropped. This fall, 96 of 4,800 freshmen at the University of California, Los Angeles — 2 percent — are black, a 30-year low.

For the University of Michigan, the proposition would require broader changes than the Supreme Court did; it ruled in Ms. Gratz’s case and a companion case that while the consideration of race as part of the law school’s admissions policy was constitutional, a formula giving extra points to minority undergraduate applicants was not.

This issue seems to unite a lot of traditional foes together:

Opposition to the measure is led by One United Michigan, an unusually broad coalition that includes Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm, a Democrat, and her Republican challenger, Dick DeVos, as well as unions, churches, businesses and higher education and civil rights groups. It has raised and spent $3.3 million.

“We have the A.C.L.U. sitting with the Michigan Catholic Conference on the steering committee, which is something you don’t see very often,” said David Waymire, a coalition spokesman. “There isn’t a big Michigan voice on the other side. But it’s tough. Two years ago, the initial polling found more than two-thirds supported the proposition. The miracle is that we’ve gotten it into a winnable range.”

For those unfamiliar with the issue, University of Michigan, my alma mater, was center of debate on affirmative action. Even President Bush commented on the case, as mentioned in an entry (while reading the past entry, please note that I haven’t cemented by opinion on affirmative action in Malaysia at that time. In fact, read this too, where I was trying to take a pragmatic view). From the look of it, Michigan is still the center of debate.

The last time the battle was fought, the result was a draw at best. Wikipedia has a write up on the issue at Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger. Bollinger was the President of the University. He’s currently the President of Columbia University. While at Michigan, he was very popular with the students.