In its continuing efforts to keep the public informed about the ongoing admissions litigation, the University of Michigan makes these transcripts of the trial proceedings in Grutter v Bollinger, et al., Civil Action No. 97-75928 (E.D. Mich.), available to the University community and general public. As is often the case with transcription, some words or phrases may be misspelled or simply incorrect. The University makes no representation as to the accuracy of the transcripts.




                                                                           114

                1                     (Afternoon session.)

                2                          -- --- --

                3                DIRECT EXAMINATION   (Continued)

                4    BY MS. MASSIE:

                5      Q   Professor Allen, before the lunch break you gave us a 

                6    bit of context for the study you did of feeder schools to 

                7    the U of M Law School and the law school itself and I want 

                8    to turn back now to the study you did for this case. 

                9            First, could you just tell us what were the goals, 

               10    what were the central goals for this study?

               11      A   The central goals for the study were to assess the 

               12    campus racial climate, both the law school and in the feeder 

               13    undergraduate institutions, and then -- and assess it with 

               14    an eye toward establishing whether, indeed, whether those 

               15    campuses, campus environments were racially hostile, and 

               16    secondly, to examine the consequences of campus racial 

               17    climate for academic outcomes.

               18      Q   What do you mean?

               19      A   Student grades, student retention, student 

               20    satisfaction with the college experience.

               21      Q   And I think you mentioned earlier that there were some 

               22    focus groups you carried out --

               23      A   Yes.

               24      Q   -- in connection with that study?

               25      A   That's correct. 













                                                                           115

                1      Q   What's a focus group?

                2      A   A focus group is a research strategy that employs 

                3    guided discussions; that is, you get together a group of 

                4    individuals, usually about five to ten people, and using a 

                5    developed, scientifically developed protocol go through a 

                6    series of questions with that group and facilitate, guide 

                7    the discussion, and that's with an eye toward eliciting 

                8    information which will then be analyzed around the research 

                9    question at hand.

               10            MS. MASSIE:  If I could approach the witness.

               11            THE COURT:  Yes. 

               12            MS. MASSIE:  Actually, Judge, there are a bunch of 

               13    exhibits that I'm going to try to enter through Professor 

               14    Allen and I'll just do them all now. 

               15    BY MS. MASSIE:

               16      Q   What I'm going to be focusing you on, Professor Allen, 

               17    is the report you did for this case.  I'm going to ask you 

               18    to identify it so we can have it in the record, but there 

               19    are another number of other things that are in the binder 

               20    that I'll be moving in at the same time, if that makes 

               21    sense.

               22      A   Okay. 

               23            THE COURT:  Yes. 

               24            MS. MASSIE:  I'm providing the witness with 

               25    Tabs 156, 157 and 158.  Could we take a look at Tab 156, 













                                                                           116

                1    please.

                2            THE COURT:  I didn't realize those tabs were so big.

                3            MS. MASSIE:  I know, and 156 in particular is huge.

                4            THE WITNESS:  Yes. 

                5    BY MS. MASSIE:

                6      Q   What is Tab 156?

                7      A   Tab 156 contains my curriculum vitae, along with a 

                8    number of papers that I have published on the status of 

                9    black students at the University of Michigan in particular 

               10    and on the status of black students in higher education.

               11      Q   And this was something that you prepared in 

               12    conjunction with your retention as an expert witness by 

               13    the Intervenor in the undergraduate affirmative action 

               14    challenge?

               15      A   That's correct.

               16      Q   Which is Gratz versus Bollinger?

               17      A   Yes.

               18      Q   If you could take a look at Tab 157 for me.  If you 

               19    can just let me know when you've got it.

               20      A   Yes.

               21      Q   What's that?

               22      A   Tab 157 contains the final report titled, Affirmative 

               23    Action Educational Equity and Campus Racial Climate, A Case 

               24    Study of the University of Michigan Law School, along with 

               25    appendices.













                                                                           117

                1      Q   And that's the report that you prepared for the 

                2    law school case?

                3      A   That's correct. 

                4      Q   And the undergraduate report was incorporated as a 

                5    supplement --

                6      A   Yes.

                7      Q   -- to that report; isn't that correct?

                8      A   Yes, it is correct.  That's Tab 158.

                9      Q   That's a supplemental undergrad report?

               10      A   I'm sorry, the report, the supplemental undergrad 

               11    report is titled Campus Racial Climate at the University 

               12    of Michigan-Ann Arbor, A Case Study, and it is the study 

               13    of the questions of campus racial climate and academic 

               14    outcomes for students of color at the University of 

               15    Michigan-Ann Arbor, and it also includes appendices.

               16      Q   And these items were all prepared by you personally 

               17    and specifically?

               18      A   That's correct.

               19      Q   I want to turn you now, if you can reach down there or 

               20    I can come get it, to Tabs 159 and 160, and if you could 

               21    tell us what those are, please.

               22      A   Sorry, 159 is actually in this book. 

               23      Q   Is it?  I apologize.  I'm sorry.

               24      A   Tab 159 is the expert report prepared by Professor 

               25    James D. Anderson, and it is an analysis of -- it first 













                                                                           118

                1    includes his -- it's an analysis of historical patterns of 

                2    racial exclusion and race relationships at the University 

                3    of Michigan. 

                4      Q   And 160?

                5      A   160 is a report prepared by another expert, Dr. Joe 

                6    Fagin, and this particular report is titled Negative Racial 

                7    Climates and Critical Mass Issues at Predominantly White 

                8    Colleges and Universities.

                9            MS. MASSIE:  And finally, I'm going to approach 

               10    the witness, if that's okay, Judge, with the Grace Carroll 

               11    supplement, which I handed out to everybody earlier today.

               12            THE COURT:  What number do you want to make that?

               13            MS. MASSIE:  212. 

               14            THE COURT:  I think, don't you have a 212? 

               15            No, that's right, 212.

               16    BY MS. MASSIE: 

               17      Q   And tell us what that is, if you would.

               18      A   The report was prepared by Dr. Grace Carroll, also a 

               19    member of the research team, and it focused on -- I'll use 

               20    the title:  Case Studies of Success of Black, Chicano-Latino 

               21    and Native American Alumni of the University of Michigan Law 

               22    School, so the study of successful graduates who had been 

               23    admitted under affirmative action at the University of 

               24    Michigan Law School.

               25      Q   And that, too, was a supplement to your report?













                                                                           119

                1      A   This is correct.

                2            MS. MASSIE:  Judge, I would like to move 211, 212.

                3            THE COURT:  Hold on.  Let's do them one at a time.  

                4    Let me take a couple of notes.

                5            MS. MASSIE:  211 is Professor Allen's CV.

                6            MR. KOLBO:  I have no objection, Your Honor.

                7            THE COURT:  Received.

                8            MS. MASSIE:  212 is the Grace Carroll supplement.

                9            MR. KOLBO:  Your Honor, I just want to raise an 

               10    objection for the record.  In a number of these cases, 

               11    including this particular exhibit, what's being offered 

               12    is another expert's report who isn't here, so I can't 

               13    cross examine Dr. Allen effectively on somebody else's 

               14    expert report, so  --

               15            MS. MASSIE:  Grace Carroll was a member of the team.  

               16    She was available to be deposed.  She was on our witness 

               17    list for some time, in fact, and Dr. Allen as an expert can 

               18    rely on the findings and the work of the people on his team 

               19    whom he directed.

               20            MR. KOLBO:  I certainly agree, Your Honor, that an 

               21    expert can rely on hearsay, but the hearsay is not typically 

               22    admissible, and that's what is happening here.

               23            THE COURT:  I agree.  I can't admit it.  I won't 

               24    admit it, because it's not his report and so forth.  He 

               25    certainly can rely on that and any other kind of data that 













                                                                           120

                1    he has used to ultimately reach his expert conclusions.

                2            MS. MASSIE:  And you would have the same position 

                3    on the Fagin and Anderson reports, I presume?

                4            THE COURT:  It's not a position, it's pretty much 

                5    the way I was taught the rules.

                6            MS. MASSIE:  Okay.

                7            THE COURT:  The same thing about Fagin and Anderson, 

                8    which is 159 and 160.  If he used those in rendering his 

                9    expert opinion, he certainly can use that knowledge as he 

               10    can in any other kinds of readings or studies or any of that 

               11    nature, but the reports themselves would not be admissible.

               12            MS. MASSIE:  Okay.  Well, what I will do then is 

               13    move into evidence 156, 157 and 158, which were prepared by 

               14    Professor Allen personally.

               15            MR. KOLBO:  And Your Honor, I feel less strongly 

               16    about this, but I do want to lodge an objection to the 

               17    extent that Dr. Allen's testimony -- Dr. Allen's report 

               18    includes a lot of hearsay.  He has discussed these test 

               19    results from these focus groups, I appreciate he can rely 

               20    on that, even though I think that that in itself is 

               21    inadmissible, but I don't feel as strongly about that 

               22    objection, Your Honor, as the ones I just argued.

               23            THE COURT:  Again, I think that will go somewhat to 

               24    its weight and so forth.  The Court will allow 156, 157, 

               25    158, which have been reported to be Dr. Allen's own works 













                                                                           121

                1    and own report.

                2            MS. MASSIE:  Okay. 

                3            THE COURT:  Which obviously can contain hearsay, 

                4    but I don't think that makes a difference.

                5            MS. MASSIE:  I'm sorry?

                6            THE COURT:  To address the Plaintiff's concern, it 

                7    obviously contain hearsay, but that doesn't in itself make 

                8    those objectionable.

                9            MS. MASSIE:  Sure.

               10    BY MS. MASSIE:

               11      Q   Tell us about the focus groups that you conducted.  

               12    You mentioned that focus groups are guided.  Did you have a 

               13    protocol or some other kind of instrument for guiding the 

               14    discussion in the focus groups that you carried out for 

               15    this case?

               16      A   Yes, I did.  I basically designed a research process, 

               17    trained the researchers in that process, and then monitored 

               18    their work to be sure that they adhered to the process.

               19            A central element of the process was to develop and 

               20    finalize a protocol that is a set of questions around the 

               21    research issues of assessing campus racial climate and 

               22    assessing how campus racial climate, if at all, affected 

               23    the academic performance and academic outcomes of black 

               24    students, students of color and female students. 

               25      Q   And is -- if you could, if I could turn you to 













                                                                           122

                1    appendix one in your -- in Tab 156, please. 

                2            I'm sorry, 157, excuse me, your report for the 

                3    law school case.

                4      A   Yes, I have it. 

                5      Q   It may -- it should be appendix one.

                6      A   I have it.

                7      Q   What's that?

                8      A   This is the general form of the racial climate 

                9    protocol used to guide each of the focus groups, and I say 

               10    the general form, because we made minor modifications to 

               11    deal with the membership of the specific focus group, so 

               12    changing pronouns, for example. 

               13      Q   And in the -- so it contains a kind of introduction 

               14    and then if you could just talk us through the key things 

               15    that the focus groups were oriented around as reflected 

               16    in the protocol.

               17      A   Okay.  The key protocol questions, as was indicated, 

               18    you have the introductory question, and then a series of 

               19    questions specific to the student's campus, asking the 

               20    student whether he or she had ever experienced racial 

               21    discrimination, or if it was the case of a focus on a group 

               22    of women, gender discrimination, probing the students on any 

               23    accounts they might offer to try and get a sense of whether 

               24    they were talking about discrimination that was more 

               25    structural or institutionally based or whether they were 













                                                                           123

                1    talking about micro forms of that discrimination; that is, 

                2    discrimination that was the product of an individual 

                3    decision or individual actions.

                4            THE COURT:  The answers, are they recorded?

                5            THE WITNESS:  Yes, sir, they are, and transcribed. 

                6            THE COURT:  Okay.

                7            THE WITNESS:  And then we -- should I talk a bit 

                8    about what we do with the data?

                9            THE COURT:  I'm sure we will get it.  I'm just 

               10    curious, you know, I have been to commercial focus groups, 

               11    you know, where the client stands behind the window and they 

               12    show you all the products and what do you like about them 

               13    and all that and they don't record those.  I just wondered, 

               14    you recorded them because you needed that data in order to, 

               15    I suspect, put it together for your report?

               16            THE WITNESS:  We actually record the answers for 

               17    accuracy, transcribe them, have them typed up and then 

               18    subject the text to a systematic analysis, and that analysis 

               19    takes the form of reading through in very minute detail the 

               20    responses, developing the themes and the general points and 

               21    ideas that are forthcoming in that focus group, and then 

               22    moving from there to a categorization of the responses and 

               23    an analysis and then linking that information, which is 

               24    now in the form of data, back to some of the originating 

               25    research questions.













                                                                           124

                1            THE COURT:  So the purpose of the group is to probe 

                2    and then you analyze later?

                3            THE WITNESS:  Yes, sir.

                4            MS. MASSIE:  And Judge, the transcripts have been 

                5    marked.  They are not in the binders, because they are too 

                6    voluminous.

                7            THE COURT:  I'm not necessarily interested in those.  

                8    I'm more interested in his opinions.

                9            MS. MASSIE:  No, I understand.

               10            THE COURT:  I was just curious as to what the 

               11    procedure was.

               12            MS. MASSIE:  We will probably be trying to -- we 

               13    will see whether it makes sense and would be helpful to 

               14    move them in at some point later on.

               15            THE COURT:  Fine.

               16    BY MS. MASSIE:

               17      Q   Did you conduct any of the focus groups yourself?

               18      A   Yes, I did.

               19      Q   And did other people conduct some of the focus groups 

               20    as well?

               21      A   The focus groups were conducted by some other members 

               22    of the research team.

               23      Q   And as you were just discussing with the Court, they 

               24    were recorded?

               25      A   Yes, they were.  And I edited all of the final 













                                                                           125

                1    transcripts and participated, of course, and helped to 

                2    guide the actual analysis and interpretation phases.

                3      Q   What do you mean, you edited all of the final 

                4    transcripts?

                5      A   I mean I read them thoroughly and just simply worked 

                6    through in conjunction with the -- if it was a case where I 

                7    had not conducted that focus group myself, worked through 

                8    with the researchers to be sure that they had edited the 

                9    text and that they had taken care of those issues of 

               10    accuracy. 

               11      Q   When you say edited, what do you mean?

               12      A   In some cases transcripts are -- well, just simply 

               13    reading the transcripts for accuracy and making the 

               14    necessary corrections.

               15      Q   Is it true that some of the -- some of the times the 

               16    transcription would contain words that were hard for the 

               17    transcriber to hear?

               18      A   Yes, either hard for the transcriber to hear or at 

               19    times it was a kind of idiosyncratic regional usage or 

               20    cultural usage that the transcribers might miss and so it 

               21    was absolutely necessary for the people who had conducted, 

               22    the person who had conducted the focus group to go back 

               23    and correct such omissions or such typos.

               24      Q   And you did that while listening to the tapes; 

               25    correct?













                                                                           126

                1      A   Absolutely. 

                2      Q   You're confident that the transcripts are full and 

                3    accurate renditions of the focus groups, except where there 

                4    is an elision indicated?

                5      A   That's accurate, yes. 

                6      Q   And then if you could elaborate a little on the 

                7    process that you then go through of analyzing the focus 

                8    groups.

                9      A   Well, as I was saying, the process is one of producing 

               10    transcripts that contain and present the full record of the 

               11    focus group, questions asked, the answers received, and then 

               12    we treat that text, that transcript as data, as empirical 

               13    data, which is then subjected to analysis. 

               14            The analysis is not unlike most data analysis.  

               15    Essentially what one does is to work with a voluminous set 

               16    of information and try to understand the patterns within 

               17    the data set, and in this case the patterns within the 

               18    responses, and working in terms of the categories that 

               19    emerge from the focus group. 

               20            Now, focus group is a methodology somewhat different 

               21    than standard quantitative analysis, in that the standard 

               22    quantitative analysis, there is an approach such that you 

               23    impose your categories on the data; that is, by the -- by 

               24    virtue of how I construct my survey or questionnaire, I have 

               25    a predetermined notion of what will be important themes and 













                                                                           127

                1    questions and so all of my questions are organized around 

                2    those presumed themes. 

                3            With the focus groups and with the qualitative 

                4    methodology, you approach the issue of trying to understand 

                5    patterns from the other end; that is, beginning with 

                6    people's verbalizations, beginning with their perspectives, 

                7    and then trying to extract the order out of the information 

                8    that they have presented. 

                9            So in one case you're working from the top down; 

               10    that is, with the quantitative approach.  The qualitative 

               11    approach, you're working from, quote, unquote, the bottom 

               12    up; that is, using people's own comments, discussion and 

               13    construction of the question to arrive at a general 

               14    understanding, or a more focused understanding, I should 

               15    say. 

               16      Q   Were there constraints across all the different 

               17    campuses, were there constraints of size and interview 

               18    personnel and so forth that you need to tell us about 

               19    to understand how the focus groups were set up?

               20      A   The one constraint -- I mean, obviously there were 

               21    several constraints and the least of which being that they 

               22    were working with limited resources and very real time 

               23    pressures, but the information generated is very reliable 

               24    and quite dependable, and so to the extent that there were 

               25    limitations of concern, none of that would rise to a level 













                                                                           128

                1    such that I would not have confidence in these data or the 

                2    decisions or expert opinions that I would express based on 

                3    the data.

                4      Q   And I apologize, my question was not very clear.  I 

                5    meant something much more concrete, just how big are they 

                6    supposed to be, were you alone when you conducted the focus 

                7    groups, would there be one researcher, two?

                8      A   Okay.  The ideal model is where you have a facilitator 

                9    and then a recorder in some of the instances, and ideally a 

               10    facilitator who is one of the members of the major -- of the 

               11    three co-principal investigators, and in some instances I 

               12    actually conducted the focus groups alone and played both 

               13    roles, but feeling comfortable doing so, because I was so 

               14    close to the study and I knew that research and the paradigm 

               15    and it's just something that I have done for years, and most 

               16    importantly because there was the backup of a recorded tape 

               17    and later typed transcript. 

               18            Now, in instances where I was the sole person 

               19    playing the role of facilitator and recorder, the strategy 

               20    or the methodological adjustment were to make sure that 

               21    there were two tape recorders running for the entire span 

               22    of the focus group and that way not an utterance was missed, 

               23    because normally what the recorder will do is keep a 

               24    parallel set of notes, more so as a backup to a failed tape 

               25    recorder.  And so the adjustment that I made to make sure 













                                                                           129

                1    that we did not lose data and information because of a 

                2    failed tape recorder was to have two of them running at 

                3    the same time to produce both transcripts and then to 

                4    reconcile the transcripts. 

                5      Q   And as I understand it, there was one tape that was 

                6    accidentally erased before it could be transcribed from the 

                7    focus groups; is that right?

                8      A   We lost one tape and I think that was a relatively 

                9    small focus group, but yes, only one was lost. 

               10      Q   What campus did you do the most focus groups on?

               11      A   At the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor campus.

               12      Q   Why?

               13      A   Because the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor was at 

               14    the center of the study, both in terms of the law school, 

               15    obviously, as well as in terms of the undergraduate feeder 

               16    from the college of literature, science and the arts.

               17      Q   And is the top feeder school to the U of M Law School; 

               18    isn't that right?

               19      A   Yes, yes. 

               20      Q   Had you had the opportunity to do research 

               21    specifically on the University of Michigan previously?

               22      A   Yes, I had. 

               23      Q   What was that?

               24      A   I have been doing research focused on and around the 

               25    University of Michigan since, interestingly enough, before 













                                                                           130

                1    I arrived to the campus in 1979, so as early as 1978 the 

                2    University of Michigan-Ann Arbor was a participating campus 

                3    in my national study of African American students, how they 

                4    experienced their educational careers on predominantly white 

                5    campuses and their academic outcomes. 

                6            And from '78 into the present I have done numerous 

                7    survey studies of the University of Michigan campus in 

                8    conjunction with the University administration, have written 

                9    two reports using the University of Michigan retention data 

               10    set, which as I shared earlier today was the data file 

               11    maintained on all entering students for -- from the point 

               12    of entry until their point of separation from the University 

               13    or five years, whichever came first, and a series of other 

               14    surveys, as well. 

               15            And I'm sorry, one other earlier group focusing on 

               16    interviews with individual students. 

               17      Q   So the Ann Arbor campus was somewhat familiar terrain 

               18    to you?

               19      A   Very much so.  It was one of my common research sites. 

               20      Q   Tell us a bit about the history of questions 

               21    surrounding race and racial dynamics at the University of 

               22    Michigan-Ann Arbor.

               23      A   The history of race and racial dynamics at the 

               24    University of Michigan, not surprisingly, reflects the 

               25    history of race and racial dynamics in the larger society 













                                                                           131

                1    and in higher education generally.  The University never 

                2    had an official policy of exclusion of black students, but 

                3    in fact, operated in such a way that black students were 

                4    excluded from the University.  Those black students who 

                5    attended the University were excluded from living on the 

                6    campus, having housing on the campus.  And so that is a 

                7    historical record that simply reminds us that there was a 

                8    time when education was formally and in some parts of the 

                9    country legally segregated by race, and in other parts of 

               10    the country where the legal separation was not on the state 

               11    laws, on the state law books, but in fact, those schools 

               12    functioned in such a way as to exclude blacks from 

               13    attending, in many cases, what were publicly supported 

               14    institutions that they were helping to pay for.  The 

               15    University of Michigan was in company with other schools 

               16    that were functioning that way historically. 

               17            And so you have seen over time a situation where 

               18    race has been problematic on the University of Michigan 

               19    campus, but you have seen some improvement, and as you read 

               20    many of the historical studies you see that one of the 

               21    major breakthroughs came at that point when the University 

               22    committed itself to fuller inclusion of black students, but 

               23    it goes without saying or it's important to add that those 

               24    changes in the University often came after black students 

               25    and other students in multiracial coalitions were pressuring 













                                                                           132

                1    the University for changes; that is, in terms of mass 

                2    demonstrations and civil disobedience and so on. 

                3            So the story that history tells us about the 

                4    University of Michigan campus is a story that repeats for 

                5    many predominantly white campuses in this country.  It's 

                6    just that those schools reflecting a societal tradition and 

                7    practice had blocked access to higher education for black 

                8    students and blocked it solely on the basis of race. 

                9      Q   I would like to turn your attention to the focus 

               10    groups themselves now and ask you about the findings, the 

               11    conclusions you were able to arrive at coming out of those 

               12    focus groups.

               13      A   If I may, I would like to refer to my notes, to the 

               14    report.

               15      Q   Please do.

               16      A   To the report that you put before me. 

               17            I think those focus groups and the findings from 

               18    them were definitive in their communication of the fact that 

               19    the University climate was one that in many respects was 

               20    racially hostile and that further this negative racial 

               21    climate had very clear negative consequences for black 

               22    student outcomes, let's say, in terms of grades earned, 

               23    grade point average, in terms of the kinds of aspirations 

               24    that those students set for themselves post undergraduate, 

               25    in terms of their retention rates, and in terms of just 













                                                                           133

                1    their general sense of satisfaction and belonging at the 

                2    universities.

                3      Q   And can you tell us particularly how the racially 

                4    hostile climate was expressed, how it took shape?

                5      A   The racial climate was expressed and had hostile 

                6    elements on several levels.  First of all, there were simply 

                7    institutional practices that communicated to -- that 

                8    communicated to black students that they weren't welcome 

                9    or that functioned in ways that limited black access and 

               10    participation, so a certain set of academic requirements 

               11    for graduating high school seniors could and did represent 

               12    a barrier to applying to the University, being admitted, 

               13    and if and when there was a case where those black students, 

               14    for example, attended schools or spent their years in a 

               15    K through twelve experience, that did not allow them the 

               16    opportunity to gain those qualifications. 

               17            So that was one institutional barrier, just 

               18    institutional barriers having to do with admissions 

               19    requirements that were unfriendly to black students 

               20    and related other institutional practices. 

               21            For example, a practice that seems on the face of 

               22    it to be quite reasonable, that in order for one to receive 

               23    funding from University sources or from Student Government 

               24    for a particular interest group, student interest group, 

               25    you have to have sufficient numbers. 













                                                                           134

                1            Well, institutionally that discriminates against 

                2    black students if the practices of the University, the 

                3    traditions of the University, have worked in such a way 

                4    as to depress black student participation, so you never get 

                5    enough black students, for example, to qualify for funding 

                6    of, say, a group like the Black Student Premed Organization.  

                7    So those are some of the kinds of institutional barriers.

                8            Or the institutional barrier of the sort that at 

                9    the time most of the fraternities and sororities gained 

               10    their houses early in the University's history at a time 

               11    before black students came, so by the time black students 

               12    arrived the property was either spoken for or so expensive 

               13    that it was beyond the reach of -- reach and ability of a 

               14    black student fraternity or sorority to purchase a house, 

               15    so you had a situation where all the houses, fraternities 

               16    and sororities were white, just because of a culmination of 

               17    historical barriers and discrimination.  So discrimination 

               18    at that level and racial dynamics that were disadvantaging 

               19    at that level. 

               20            And as well as more immediate and in-the-moment 

               21    racial barriers having to do with discrimination by faculty, 

               22    discrimination by peer students, repeated patterns of 

               23    harassment by police, unfair application, if you will, 

               24    for example, of rules governing parties that are given by 

               25    white-identified versus black-identified student groups. 













                                                                           135

                1            I mean, in the one case white groups would often be 

                2    allowed to sponsor parties without any requirements of an 

                3    investment in security, whereas black students had to invest 

                4    sizable sums in security.  So those are some of the kinds of 

                5    patterns, discriminatory practices by faculty with respect 

                6    to how they interacted or did not interact with black 

                7    students versus their interactions with white students. 

                8      Q   Let me ask you to turn on the more interpersonal 

                9    expressions of racial hostility and racial discrimination.  

               10    Let me ask you to turn to page 56 of your report, which is 

               11    157.  Your report, 157.

               12            Page 56 of 157.  I think I said 57, actually.

               13      A   Yes, I have it.

               14      Q   Everybody there? 

               15            These are your findings coming out of the focus 

               16    groups?

               17      A   That's correct.

               18      Q   For the feeder colleges to the U of M Law School?

               19      A   Yes, that's correct. 

               20      Q   I'm going to go through these, Professor Allen.  I may 

               21    skip one or two that I think are needless in our focus here 

               22    today, but I'm going to ask you to just tell us what you 

               23    mean by each one and develop it a little with examples from 

               24    the focus groups, if that makes sense, or examples from your 

               25    other research, if that makes more sense. 













                                                                           136

                1            You say that white privilege and entitlement are 

                2    important and overarching features of the undergraduate 

                3    racial climate on the campuses you study. 

                4            What do you mean?

                5      A   I simply mean that it came through very clearly from 

                6    these data and this particular finding as confirmatory of 

                7    research in other settings and using other data focused on 

                8    the University of Michigan that the climate is characterized 

                9    by white privilege, and the simplest way to put that is that 

               10    whiteness is viewed as normal and being not white is treated 

               11    as abnormal, and so there are consequences for students in 

               12    terms of the degree to which they feel a part of the campus, 

               13    the degree to which their experiences are incorporated, the 

               14    degree to which they have faculty at the institution who 

               15    look like them or in their programs who are of their same 

               16    race and ethnicity, so that that privilege of whiteness is 

               17    such as to disadvantage students that are not white in the 

               18    various sectors of campus life and in their classrooms, in 

               19    their social experiences, and in the academic outcomes. 

               20      Q   And how were you -- how were you able to gather 

               21    information about white privilege through the focus groups?

               22      A   The theme of white privilege bubbled up from our 

               23    analysis of transcripts, you know.  We started with the 

               24    very general questions about campus racial climate and from 

               25    student responses and the discussion that ensued, the coding 













                                                                           137

                1    of the, data produced this very clear notion that the campus 

                2    was characterized by white privilege, by the advantaging of 

                3    whiteness in all of its aspects. 

                4      Q   You also talk about male privilege as being a 

                5    similarly overarching feature of life on the campuses

                6    you studied. 

                7            What do you mean by that?

                8      A   Simply, again, the campus was interpreted as belonging 

                9    to men more so than to women and so the institution, many 

               10    of the institutional features, many of the practices, many 

               11    of the rules advantaged males, empowered them and made 

               12    them comfortable in reminding females that this place 

               13    belongs to us and you are simply here by permission or an 

               14    interloper.

               15      Q   And is that similar to the way in which white 

               16    privilege functions on a campus, in your view?

               17      A   It's similar.  They have different features, but 

               18    they are very similar features, in that each reinforces 

               19    a societal hierarchy.  So in the society at large that 

               20    message goes out that whites are the majority and that the 

               21    institutions, the practices, the values should reflect this, 

               22    and that other groups are secondary or minority groups.

               23            And simply with women, power resides with men, and 

               24    so the message goes out that male values, male points of 

               25    view, men are more important than women in terms of what 













                                                                           138

                1    matters, and I guess bottom line is if you look at the 

                2    larger society and you look at this campus as a large -- 

                3    reflection of that larger society in each of those arenas 

                4    that is very important, males out number females, whites 

                5    outnumber blacks, in many instances blacks are just absent. 

                6      Q   And I'm going to go now to the third finding that you 

                7    list here, which is that within the negative campus racial 

                8    climate the educational playing field is uneven for students 

                9    of color compared to white students. 

               10            What do you mean by that?

               11      A   I mean the students simply reported example after 

               12    example that made clear that they -- that black students 

               13    or students of color were not on an equal footing with 

               14    their white classmates.  So they would give examples, for 

               15    instance, of study groups forming within the sciences, so 

               16    you had a situation where black students were already 

               17    under-represented in the sciences and you had a situation 

               18    where study groups were an essential element of the 

               19    educational experience in that disciplinary area, and 

               20    student after student would report that study groups would 

               21    form around them and exclude them, so leaving them outside  

               22    an important element of the educational experience, and 

               23    flat out, because in many instances the students reported 

               24    other students saying to them in no uncertain terms that 

               25    you're black, you're not qualified, and that you'll pull 













                                                                           139

                1    our study group down, so we're not going to include you, 

                2    because we don't think you're qualified. 

                3            And this was before -- you know, study groups formed 

                4    sometimes on the first day of class, before there is any 

                5    demonstration of who is qualified and who is not qualified 

                6    and who is talented and who is not.  So that was one 

                7    example. 

                8            There were other examples of unfair grading by, 

                9    often, teaching assistants or professors who in their 

               10    approaches did not speak to or address the needs of those 

               11    black students, those Chicano-Latino students or were just 

               12    not very sympathetic working with those students.  So you 

               13    had examples of student experiences that made it very 

               14    clear that black students and students of color carried an 

               15    additional burden in terms of their educational experience. 

               16            For instance, a link that ties us back to 

               17    institutional shortcoming, as well as making this point 

               18    about the uneven academic playing field is that often those 

               19    black students and those Chicano-Latino students had two 

               20    jobs, they had to be good students, excellent students, and 

               21    they also had to spend time constructing a social and group 

               22    environment that was there and available for white students.  

               23    So white students did not spend their time founding 

               24    organizations and trying to advocate on behalf of their 

               25    group to the same extent that black students had to. 













                                                                           140

                1            So literally, that had academic consequences, as 

                2    well, and it was due to the fact that the uneven playing 

                3    field had produced a situation wherein black students wanted 

                4    to have organizations on that campus, they wanted to have a 

                5    social presence, if they wanted to have a voice, they had to 

                6    develop this from scratch themselves and spend inordinate 

                7    amounts of personal time working on those kinds of important 

                8    dimensions of their experience, giving themselves a voice, 

                9    making themselves a presence, but with consequences for the 

               10    amount of time available for studying. 

               11            And by contrast, for example, their white fellow 

               12    students could come into an environment where many of the 

               13    organizations that were essentially for them socially had 

               14    already been established and had larger memberships and 

               15    were in many respects self-continuing. 

               16      Q   What stereotypes, if any, did students who 

               17    participated in the focus groups either talk about 

               18    explicitly or proverbially in their experiences to be 

               19    present on campuses?

               20      A   There were numerous stereotypes referred to by the 

               21    students and that characterized their experiences.  I made 

               22    a mention of an institutional problem of police harassment.  

               23    There was one stereotype that resulted in regular and 

               24    routine stop-and-identify challenges by police officers, 

               25    largely and sizably to black males, but also to black 













                                                                           141

                1    females or to Chicano-Latino males, in some instances where 

                2    it was communicated in no uncertain terms that you couldn't 

                3    be a student here, so you must be on this campus illegally, 

                4    so you must justify to me why you are here on this campus, 

                5    and by contrast, their white peers did not have these kind 

                6    of experiences. 

                7            In the classroom -- so those are some of the 

                8    stereotyping.  That's some of the stereotyping that 

                9    occurred in quote, unquote, social spaces or outside of 

               10    the classroom.

               11            In the classroom proper, I have given you one 

               12    example of stereotyping where, when student peers exclude 

               13    a black student or a Chicano-Latino student from the study 

               14    group because of assumptions of innate inferiority or lack 

               15    of academic preparation, that is stereotyping by peers.

               16            Similarly, there was stereotyping in some instances 

               17    by faculty.  I used the example earlier today, the black 

               18    student who did extraordinarily well on a mathematics quiz 

               19    and then was challenged and accused of cheating and had 

               20    to attempt that same exam again and fortunately did much 

               21    better. 

               22            So stereotyping of the sort that linked up with this 

               23    long history in America of the negative perception of black 

               24    people generally and of blacks in terms of their educational 

               25    performance specifically was a recurring theme as the 













                                                                           142

                1    students talked about their experiences, and in the law 

                2    school context, some of that was also apparent in terms 

                3    of women and their experiences.

                4      Q   I want to ask you specifically about, I know there 

                5    were some focus groups that included Asian Pacific 

                6    Americans.  Was there a hostile climate for that group 

                7    of students as well on the campuses you studied?

                8      A   Yes.  Contrary to popular mythology, those students -- 

                9    or contrary to what we would expect, because you have ideas 

               10    of Asians as a model minority and not having any kinds of 

               11    problems on these campuses, and indeed, sometimes they as a 

               12    minority group are pointed to as and held up as an example 

               13    for other minority students when, in fact, these students, 

               14    these Asian Pacific Islander students talked about instances 

               15    in many cases of extreme racial stereotyping, and the model 

               16    minority being one such racial stereotype, but additional 

               17    racial stereotyping of taking the form of overt racial slurs 

               18    in and around the campus and in some instances rising to the 

               19    point of physical threat, and as is the case with racism 

               20    and sexism, at times the racial and gender discrimination 

               21    overlapped and so some of the Asian Pacific Islander women 

               22    were confronted with racialized and sexualized stereotypes 

               23    where they were cast in very stereotypic fashions by student 

               24    peers and in some instances by things that faculty said to 

               25    them. 













                                                                           143

                1            So the interesting quality about these forms of 

                2    racial and sexual discrimination and on this campus is that 

                3    they are and continue to be a real element in this society. 

                4            Now, at the same time, the society has made some 

                5    gains and in fact was making tremendous progress and much 

                6    of that progress was being assisted by successful efforts 

                7    to increase the representation of different groups on the 

                8    campus, because it's harder to stereotype when you can 

                9    look around you and see six, eight examples of a person 

               10    from Chinese ancestry, because if you have any kind of 

               11    consciousness, you will see that those people are presenting 

               12    themselves differently, even though they have a shared 

               13    common belief.  I mean, a common kind of presentation in 

               14    some elements. 

               15            The point is that if you look at the skin colorings, 

               16    you can look at the ethnic group and know that they are 

               17    Chinese, but the point is that you can see the individuals, 

               18    but you must have enough people around, a large number, 

               19    critical mass, so that you can get that kind of diversity 

               20    within the group.

               21            And when you do achieve that, and we were achieving 

               22    it, it's beneficial for the educational experience of 

               23    everyone on the campus, not to mention the fact that it 

               24    prepares us all better to live together as a society that 

               25    is diverse. 













                                                                           144

                1      Q   Did the stereotype of intellectual inferiority that 

                2    you were referring to earlier apply equally to all different 

                3    groups of minority students?

                4      A   Absolutely not.  It attached much more strongly to 

                5    African Americans and more strongly to Chinese -- I mean, 

                6    to Chicano-Latino students compared to, say, Chinese 

                7    students or Japanese students or female students.  And 

                8    that's again historically rooted in how this society has 

                9    constructed its views of African Americans. 

               10            But I can tell you one very refreshing comment from 

               11    one of the focus groups, a student was just talking about 

               12    the power of a class as an object lesson, and this class had 

               13    an African American professor and so the student was just 

               14    talking -- and this, by the way, was a Chicano-Latino 

               15    student -- just talking about how forcefully he was 

               16    influenced by that very bright African American man standing 

               17    up there teaching this class and how it was helpful for 

               18    him as a Chicano-Latino student as well as for the white 

               19    students and the other students in the room to understand 

               20    that African Americans are capable of such excellence given 

               21    a chance. 

               22      Q   What impact did these dynamics have on the students, 

               23    what set of impacts?

               24      A   I had to pause, because they were influenced in a 

               25    variety of ways.  The students talked about how experiences 













                                                                           145

                1    of kind of a negative racial climate and discrimination by 

                2    students and faculty, peers, student peers and faculty who 

                3    were white, these black students, these students of color 

                4    talked about how it negatively affected their academic 

                5    performance in a number of ways. 

                6            At times, it left them feeling angry, helpless, 

                7    frustrated.  In other instances it inclined them to drop 

                8    majors that they had sort of aspired to since childhood.  

                9    They wanted to be doctors since as far back as they had 

               10    remembered, they had wanted to be attorneys, and then these 

               11    aspirations were sidetracked by a faculty person who would 

               12    communicate to them that he or she didn't think they were 

               13    appropriate material, or they were sidetracked by faculty 

               14    not managing the racial dynamics in the classroom in such a 

               15    way as to challenge and have everyone explore and discuss 

               16    negative racial characterization. 

               17            So these students, their aspirations were disrupted 

               18    in places.  They had extreme sociopsychological distress 

               19    and in some instances their responses were simply to drop 

               20    classes, stop attending class, stop engaging in interactions 

               21    and discussions, to withdraw, if you will.  So those were 

               22    some of the negative kinds of responses. 

               23            There were some positive responses, as well.  Some 

               24    of the positive responses were that these students did go 

               25    ahead and construct a social world, if you will, that was 













                                                                           146

                1    absent for black students or for Chicano-Latino students or 

                2    for Asian Pacific Islander students on the campus.  So they 

                3    spent time founding groups and making sure that their voices 

                4    were heard. 

                5            So a combination of those kinds of responses, but 

                6    disproportionately the responses were negative and with 

                7    negative consequences for their academic performance in 

                8    the year, in that moment, and also for their academic 

                9    aspirations.  Self-esteem suffered.  It was just -- the 

               10    list is long and spelled out here. 

               11      Q   Tell us about the impact on academic aspirations.

               12      A   The impact on academic aspirations was such that, as I 

               13    said, students would enter school with a particular academic 

               14    goal, and because of their negative experiences with people 

               15    in the field, either their student peers or their faculty 

               16    members or their teaching assistants, and because of the 

               17    fact that they could not receive satisfaction, because many 

               18    of these students, I mean, these students would work very 

               19    hard to show that, and the students are not victims, I 

               20    mean, many of these students are not solely and completely 

               21    victims. 

               22            Many of these students, they come in, they are very 

               23    bright, energetic and determined, and so confronted with 

               24    racism and sexism they don't simply lie down, but the point 

               25    is that there is a cumulative effect such that over time 













                                                                           147

                1    many of them are beaten down and so they simply give up and 

                2    leave a major because they are just told by counselors and 

                3    advisors, for example, that this major is not for you.  They 

                4    go into classrooms and faculty don't take them seriously as 

                5    students or communicate to them that they don't think they 

                6    are qualified and so it translates into those students 

                7    either dropping or changing their aspirations. 

                8            When you look at the other larger studies that I 

                9    have conducted, survey studies both on white campuses and 

               10    on black campuses, that aspiration link is really quite 

               11    interesting, because you'll find that black students on the 

               12    white campuses will express higher aspirations on average, 

               13    but their expectation within whatever field that they move 

               14    into is that they will not become eminent in the field; 

               15    that is, they presume, having learned their lessons from 

               16    participating in predominantly white schools, that they will 

               17    be only allowed to rise so far and not much higher than 

               18    that, whereas their peers at historically black schools 

               19    who have similar aspirations, also, believe that they are 

               20    capable of rising to the top of that field once they move 

               21    into the field, not only just becoming a lawyer, but 

               22    becoming one of the preeminent corporate attorneys -- 

               23    excuse me -- one of the preeminent trial attorneys. 

               24      Q   Thank you. 

               25            But on the historically black campuses, if I 













                                                                           148

                1    understood what you just said, the overall level of 

                2    aspiration was lower, let's say, category of aspiration 

                3    was lower, but within that students had more of a sense 

                4    that they could succeed?

                5      A   Exactly.

                6      Q   And would be treated equally?

                7      A   Exactly. 

                8      Q   Did the minority students in the focus groups 

                9    express only negative things about their white peers and 

               10    counterparts?

               11      A   Actually, they did not, and that was one of the values 

               12    of -- that was a value of our survey data.  We had a simple 

               13    item, but an item that's been tested and proven to be quite 

               14    effective, where you ask students, if you had to do it 

               15    over again would you chose this institution; and a related 

               16    question, how many times have you ever thought of dropping 

               17    out. 

               18            These students, to a person, the majority of them 

               19    overwhelmingly said that despite all the negatives and the 

               20    challenges, given the chance, they would chose to attend the 

               21    University of Michigan again, knowing what they know now. 

               22            And they then would go on in the focus groups 

               23    and talk about some of those positives, and some of those 

               24    positives were quite obvious.  We know that when the 

               25    University of Michigan works as an educational experience, 













                                                                           149

                1    it works beautifully.  It is a fantastic educational 

                2    experience.  It prepares you quite well and it opens 

                3    doors and enters you into the competition for status in 

                4    the society at a very elevated level. 

                5            So the students talked about those very real 

                6    educational and occupational benefits that flowed, but they 

                7    also talked about, and this was another very clear finding 

                8    from the survey instrument and supported by the focus 

                9    groups, they talked about how much they had learned by 

               10    virtue of coming into contact with people from different 

               11    backgrounds and different races and ethnicities. 

               12            And that wasn't to say that there hadn't been 

               13    moments of tension, because, I mean, quite obviously you're 

               14    bringing people together of different points of view, so 

               15    there will be some tension, but there is growth that comes 

               16    out of that tension, and the students talked about that 

               17    growth and they talked about how they valued an opportunity 

               18    to meet and exchange with people who came from a different 

               19    world view, who were from a different race or ethnicity. 

               20            And as a sociological aside, there are just so 

               21    few, there's just so few places in a society where we 

               22    still have or will have opportunities for multicultural, 

               23    multiracial exchanges and they're really down to a couple.  

               24    I mean, we're talking about the workplace and we're talking 

               25    about schools, and it doesn't happen in the workplace if 













                                                                           150

                1    it's not happening in the schools, because you'll have a 

                2    segregated workplace if you're having segregation in the 

                3    schools. 

                4      Q   Did the students and the -- had students expressed -- 

                5    did all the students from all different races express 

                6    support for the diversity and the degree of integration 

                7    that had been achieved on the different campuses?

                8      A   Absolutely, and in fact, they were overwhelmingly in 

                9    support of a mechanism that had been used to achieve that 

               10    diversity, which was affirmative action. 

               11      Q   In that regard, the -- you did some focus groups, you 

               12    told us, at the University of California at Berkley.  Were 

               13    there differences in those focus groups compared to some of 

               14    the other ones that related to the question of the level of 

               15    diversity and integration on the campus?

               16      A   There were some key and important differences.  One of 

               17    those had to do with just the issue of Proposition 209 and 

               18    the ban on affirmative action in the State of California, 

               19    and the students talked about how dramatically and how 

               20    negatively the campus had been influenced as a result of 

               21    such changes in their years there, talking about looking at, 

               22    for example, pictures of earlier years where there was just 

               23    an abundance of black people on the campus and then being 

               24    confronted with a situation in the present where blacks 

               25    were few and far between as a presence on the campus. 













                                                                           151

                1            Similarly, the Asian Pacific Islander students, the 

                2    Chicano-Latino students, the black students talked about, 

                3    and indeed some of the white students talked about, how 

                4    that in some ways affirmative action had -- was being used 

                5    as, I'll use my terminology, a stalking horse; that is, 

                6    used as a basis for trying to validate racial stereotypes; 

                7    that is, by saying that if you see a black student or a 

                8    Chicano-Latino, then that student is unqualified, because, 

                9    quote, unquote, that student is an affirmative action 

               10    student. 

               11            So you got different dynamics across the campuses, 

               12    but the campuses were consistent.  The students were 

               13    consistent across those campuses in terms of their comments 

               14    about the positives that accrued to them as people and that 

               15    accrued to them in terms of their educations by virtue of 

               16    being in an environment, in a setting, where they could 

               17    interact with students from different races, different 

               18    cultures, different backgrounds.  

               19      Q   You reached the conclusion that, and I'm reading 

               20    from page 57, that academic performance is negatively 

               21    affected by the cumulative macro and micro forms of racial 

               22    discrimination.  Students of color appear to be burdened by 

               23    more stress than white students.  While all students must 

               24    focus on their studies and some also work to pay for their 

               25    education, students of color have an additional full-time 













                                                                           152

                1    job of dealing with racial and gender assaults.  This is 

                2    an extra burden that most white students do not face. 

                3      A   Correct. 

                4      Q   And that finding was based on the focus group 

                5    transcripts and the analysis that you conducted of those?

                6      A   Yes, yes.  And the students who walked us through 

                7    and talked about the kinds of discrimination that they 

                8    experienced, and from there talked in specifics about its 

                9    consequences for their experience on the campus generally, 

               10    their educational outcomes, their social experiences. 

               11            Now, for me in terms of the sociological research 

               12    record that I have been trying to build, this was important 

               13    confirmatory information, because my earlier work done 

               14    on the national level, using surveys at the University of 

               15    Michigan and elsewhere, had proven that there was this 

               16    correlation, if you will, say between academic performance 

               17    and race, but in many respects that's just the beginning of 

               18    the question, because the next question is, then, why are 

               19    we getting this correlation. 

               20            And this is information that's of a richer, more 

               21    detailed sort about their day-to-day experiences and lives 

               22    on the campuses, and that question and the why came in 

               23    the form of professors that were less helpful, that were 

               24    stand-offish, or that didn't trust or value a student's 

               25    educational potential or educational performance. 













                                                                           153

                1            The why came in a series of challenges to the 

                2    student's validity and it sounds -- I mean, when you try 

                3    to document racism or sexism or any form of discrimination, 

                4    and I don't know that I'm necessarily saying anything new 

                5    to those of you who are attorneys contesting these kinds 

                6    of cases, often it sounds very minor or even silly or 

                7    thin-skinned when you say, well, the white student before 

                8    me, the three or four white students before me came up, 

                9    made their request, and it was met immediately, no questions 

               10    asked.  I come to the desk, I make the question, I get 

               11    carded.  I have to show my ID, I have to report my -- I 

               12    have to state my Social Security Number. 

               13            So the point is that it's a very subtle, but a very 

               14    powerful communication to that female who reported such 

               15    an incident that she is not to be trusted, she is in a 

               16    different category, she is in a lesser category than the 

               17    white students who passed before her.

               18            Or the black male who leaves -- this was a 

               19    Chicano-Latino male who leaves the library, long line of 

               20    students in front of him, book bags received just a cursory 

               21    glance, and they are shepherded on through.  He arrives at 

               22    the check point and the entire bag is unloaded, as if he 

               23    is not to be trusted, as if he is going to be up to some 

               24    nefarious act. 

               25            And so those are, again, what I referred to earlier 













                                                                           154

                1    as micro assaults, micro aggressions that are racialized, 

                2    racialized encounters of a sort that are in the form of 

                3    insults, in the form of challenges to legitimacy, that have 

                4    a cumulative effect on a student and basically does wear 

                5    them down, because they are talked about how drained they 

                6    would feel at the end of a day of confronting that kind of 

                7    process, and how for many of them it was so hard to get up 

                8    and go out the next day, but of course, they had to go out 

                9    the next day, because if they didn't go out the next day, 

               10    then as far as the system is concerned, you're skipping 

               11    class, and of course, you're missing content that day. 

               12      Q   And even if you do go to the class, what is the 

               13    impact?

               14      A   The impact is often that you're in the class, but 

               15    you're not participating fully.  I think that we heard 

               16    eloquent reports and very heart-wrenching reports of that 

               17    very fact from Ms. Escobar, from Ms. James, how you can be 

               18    in a class, but if you're not in a certain state of mind, 

               19    if you have been so disrupted that you can't concentrate 

               20    on what is happening in the class, you have been so 

               21    psychologically disturbed that you can't engage your 

               22    material fully or for that matter even if you have worked 

               23    through that psychological distress, but the interactions 

               24    are such that you don't feel yourself pulled into full 

               25    participation in the class, your questions are not engaged, 













                                                                           155

                1    you're not engaged as a student, and given an opportunity 

                2    to demonstrate your worth and your perspectives, you simply 

                3    are excluded from study groups, together those elements 

                4    detract from your educational experience. 

                5            And I'm talking about the more covert and subtle 

                6    forms of discrimination, but we should make no mistake about 

                7    it, as is true in the society at large, on the campuses, on 

                8    the University of Michigan campus, on those feeder campuses 

                9    to the law school, in the undergraduate college at the 

               10    University of Michigan, across the board, across these 

               11    campuses, students also report instances of much more overt 

               12    discrimination that's not only upsetting, but in some points 

               13    carries the threat of personal injury, being physically 

               14    accosted or being physically threatened and certainly being 

               15    verbally assaulted by, I mean, just countless examples of 

               16    the students reporting slurs being hurled at them of the 

               17    worst sort, hurled at them as API's, as Asian Pacific 

               18    Islanders, hurled at them as Chicano-Latinos, hurled at 

               19    them as African Americans, and so you put all of this 

               20    together where you are facing discrimination that is 

               21    informal, and you are also facing discrimination from the 

               22    formal agents on the campus, and it is really quite a burden 

               23    for students to bear. 

               24            And in just taking us back to this whole idea of a 

               25    level playing field, it's not a level playing field, because 













                                                                           156

                1    you have the same track for the students, this is true, but 

                2    given the kind of burden that I have just described, one 

                3    of the students has to run that 440, one group has to run 

                4    that 440 carrying a burden of a 500-pound stone, and the 

                5    other student is running or the other group of students 

                6    are running unfettered, and that's just simply not a fair 

                7    race.  It's not a fair race.  They are running, true, on 

                8    the same track, but they are not running under the same 

                9    circumstances. 

               10      Q   Were the white students with whom you spoke in focus 

               11    groups conscious of the unevenness of the playing field?

               12      A   You know, initially in some of the discussions, not 

               13    necessarily so, but it was actually quite interesting to 

               14    see the process whereby some of the students in that group, 

               15    we had a few focus groups that were all white students, and 

               16    purposely so, where a student, for example, would deny white 

               17    privilege and deny advantages accruing to himself because 

               18    of his whiteness and being at the University of Michigan, 

               19    and then being challenged by other white students in that 

               20    focus group and the rich discussion that ensued, and that 

               21    concluded that, yes, there were advantages to being white, 

               22    and that, yes, there were entitlements that came by virtue 

               23    of that fact, and by virtue of the other fact that one was 

               24    white in an institution that was Eurocentric, that was 

               25    white-focused, that had a construction, had values and 













                                                                           157

                1    institutional arrangements that privileged white students. 

                2      Q   For all of the students, how important --

                3      A   Excuse me.  Should I give you an example --

                4      Q   Please, please.

                5      A   -- of white entitlement? 

                6            It was very striking to see the difference, 

                7    for example, in policing of student parties, and this 

                8    particular entitlement may be as much a white male 

                9    entitlement as a white entitlement, where students, for 

               10    example, females talked about female protests, female 

               11    activities, like the Take Back the Night March, that 

               12    inevitably, like clockwork, when it wound past the 

               13    fraternity houses, males in those houses, white males 

               14    in those houses engaged in derogatory acts and in some 

               15    instances exposing themselves, often hurling insults and 

               16    slurs and name calling. 

               17            And now, mind you, these marches were escorted by 

               18    campus police, but to this day, as best I can understand, 

               19    no one has been arrested for those acts of public exposure, 

               20    for those attacks on people who were exercising their rights 

               21    to demonstrate. 

               22            Similarly, in terms of parties, Asian Pacific 

               23    Islander students talked about how closely their parties 

               24    were surveilled and monitored by police when just down the 

               25    street white fraternities were having parties that we will 













                                                                           158

                1    mildly characterize as wild, spilling out into the street, 

                2    blocking traffic, public drunkenness, underage drinking, 

                3    but the police did not enforce laws in those settings.

                4            Or instances where black students had parties in 

                5    the Union and they were funneled off the side door, I mean, 

                6    physically required to exit not through the front, but 

                7    through the side door, and this is contrasted with parties 

                8    by white -- sponsored by white organizations where the 

                9    front door was an acceptable point of entry and exit. 

               10            And, of course, there were also differences in just 

               11    the number of police that were required in order to secure 

               12    University approval for the function. 

               13      Q   And what did those practices communicate, both to the 

               14    minority and to the white students?

               15      A   They communicated in no uncertain terms that the 

               16    campus belonged to white students, that the campus was made 

               17    for white students, that it was set up for their pleasure 

               18    and their benefit and that the students of color were there 

               19    not as full members of that community, but as outsiders. 

               20      Q   I'm going to take you to another one of your findings, 

               21    Professor Allen, which I think summarizes some of what you 

               22    have been saying, but I want to give you the opportunity to 

               23    develop it and add to it, if you would like to.  I'm reading 

               24    from page 58. 

               25            A student's academic performance -- it's the second 













                                                                           159

                1    bullet point for people that are following along. 

                2            A student's academic performance as measured by 

                3    grades should be seen within the context of macro and 

                4    micro forms of racism; that is, while grades measure to 

                5    some degree a student's hard work, creativity, talent and 

                6    determination, for students of color this occurs within a 

                7    context of overcoming tremendous odds, racial affronts and 

                8    racial burdens.

                9      A   The point is, it's quite straightforward, that grades 

               10    have to be evaluated within the context of the experience 

               11    of the groups that have those grades, and so the long and 

               12    short of it is that given the kinds of burdens that I have 

               13    described, given the kinds of barriers and negative racial 

               14    experiences, for example, that the students reported, that 

               15    a Chicano-Latino who earns a B plus under all of that kind 

               16    of stress and under all of that kind of racial harassment, 

               17    sexual harassment, discrimination, it's not sufficient to 

               18    simply say it's the same B plus that her white male peers 

               19    earned on that campus, because his circumstances and his 

               20    experiences were decidedly different.

               21            And I can't talk necessarily about the K through 

               22    twelve years, but on that campus they were decidedly 

               23    different, because on that campus he had a personhood, he 

               24    had a validity, he had access to resources and opportunities 

               25    that that Chicano-Latino simply did not have. 













                                                                           160

                1            And so the point is to understand that the grades 

                2    must be contextualized, and that as much as we would like 

                3    to think about grades as objective and unsoiled indicators, 

                4    or similarly to think about tests that way, in fact, those 

                5    indicators often simply convey no more than cumulative 

                6    histories of either advantage or disadvantage. 

                7      Q   In your opinion, what's the solution to the problems 

                8    faced by minority students on college campuses that are 

                9    largely white in general, but speaking specifically of the 

               10    feeder campuses to the University of Michigan law school, 

               11    which were the principal focus of your research here?

               12      A   I think we as a society had been on the pathway to 

               13    such a solution and that was to increase the representation 

               14    and the diversity of those campuses, I mean, because to the 

               15    extent that you can increase the numbers of students of 

               16    color on those campuses, increase that critical mass, 

               17    increase the representation in the faculties of those 

               18    institutions of faculty of color, then you improve the 

               19    educational experience for everyone on the campus, and 

               20    particularly on -- for those students of color on the 

               21    campus. 

               22            And I can talk a little bit about the specifics 

               23    of the premise, if you will allow me. 

               24      Q   Yes.

               25      A   The fact of the matter is that, as I said, there are 













                                                                           161

                1    overt instances of discrimination on campus, but they are 

                2    rare, they really are rare.  They are very real, but they 

                3    are rare. 

                4            It's more often the covert instances of 

                5    discrimination, and in some instances that kind of 

                6    covert racial discrimination owes to nothing other than 

                7    just lack of familiarity with a particular group or 

                8    just ignorance of that group and that kind of lack of 

                9    familiarity, that unconscious expression of racial 

               10    discrimination. 

               11            That ignorance is addressed most effectively by 

               12    having a diverse group of people around who can engage a 

               13    professor, and one of his colleagues can engage him, around 

               14    his inappropriate racial assumptions or his inappropriate 

               15    racial comments, his inappropriate gender comments or sexual 

               16    comments. 

               17            The point is that we're most educated by our peers, 

               18    and similarly the students around one another can help to 

               19    educate each other and help to change the -- not only the 

               20    complexion, but also the character of interactions on the 

               21    campus.  So I think it's a matter of trying to do more of 

               22    what we have been doing. 

               23            See, that's the irony that the affirmative action 

               24    movement, from my purposes, just as the success of the 

               25    program is building and we're really starting to see 













                                                                           162

                1    reflected in the various occupations in society, in the 

                2    various institutions, the diversity of a sort that reflects 

                3    this country, there is a move afoot to hamper or discontinue 

                4    one of the key mechanisms for ensuring that we continue to 

                5    make progress on that front. 

                6            So those are some of the reflections I have about 

                7    what we can do.  I think that we can recommit to making 

                8    sure that these schools continue to be racially diverse 

                9    and resist any efforts to turn the clock back, and then 

               10    secondly, bring the kinds of resources to bear that will, 

               11    in the long run, benefit the institutions and benefit the 

               12    larger society, because absent those kinds of responses 

               13    we're really wasting precious human resources in this 

               14    society by deciding from the day that a certain person 

               15    is born that she is destined to the lower regions of the 

               16    society or destined to the societal -- society's junk heap 

               17    without first getting a feel for this young lady's potential 

               18    and allowing her to develop it to a maximum extent.  To the 

               19    extent she develops it to a maximum extent, then society 

               20    benefits. 

               21      Q   Professor Allen, speaking still and taking you back 

               22    some to the undergrad focus groups and the conclusions you 

               23    reached there, do you conclude that having more black and 

               24    Latino students on the campuses you studied would improve 

               25    the average GPA of minority students?













                                                                           163

                1      A   No doubt.

                2      Q   Why is that?

                3      A   Well, what we have seen from research, my own as well 

                4    as the research of others, and the Bok-Bowen is a good kind 

                5    of example that I think is known to most people, students, 

                6    black students, Chicano-Latino students do better in schools 

                7    that are better resourced, and for that matter, all 

                8    students. 

                9            I mean, retention rates are better at Harvard than 

               10    they are at lesser institutions, and for those who would 

               11    say, well, that's simply because Harvard has a different 

               12    product, the fact of the matter is that Harvard has a curve 

               13    just like everywhere else has a curve.  So if it's a matter 

               14    of the competition working itself out so that the better 

               15    students excel and move forward and the others drop by the 

               16    wayside, then you would not have those high, high retention 

               17    rates that you have in a place like Harvard, because the 

               18    point is that there are some who are better at Harvard and 

               19    there are some who are not as good. 

               20            So the point, though, is that another one of the 

               21    resources of Harvard, the assumptions that they make, and 

               22    just this whole philosophy that we don't make mistakes, if 

               23    we bring you in here, you're good enough to graduate and 

               24    you will excel, and that's a different institutional 

               25    orientation than at some places where the notion is one 













                                                                           164

                1    of, well, to be truly prestigious academically we have 

                2    to have a high body count, that is, our prestige is 

                3    predicated upon the number of students we flunk out, and 

                4    not the number that we graduate. 

                5            So I'm just simply saying that resources and 

                6    institutional orientation make a difference and when black 

                7    students and excluded students find their way to a Michigan 

                8    or have the good fortune to find their way to some of 

                9    those feeder institutions or to the feeder undergraduate 

               10    institutions of the law school, it produces excellent 

               11    outcomes for those students, because those students learn 

               12    more, as I talked about earlier, they have a better 

               13    resourced environment, the professors are more talented, 

               14    their academic physical resources are richer, and it 

               15    translates into higher levels of academic performance, 

               16    and more specifically what you see is improved rates of 

               17    retention, which are tied to higher GPA's. 

               18      Q   And on any --

               19      A   And by virtue of going through those schools that they 

               20    have been excluded from.

               21      Q   And on any particular campus, whether it's an MSU or a 

               22    Harvard or any campus, what's the relationship between the 

               23    number of minority students, the level of integration, and 

               24    the GPA's, the aggregate GPA's of those students, in your 

               25    view?













                                                                           165

                1      A   In my view, the students do better when they have a 

                2    more sizable community.

                3      Q   And why is that?

                4      A   For all of the reasons of sociopsychological comfort 

                5    that I have talked about, social support systems, but also 

                6    for reasons of just changing the character of stereotypical 

                7    perceptions on the campus; that is, changing those 

                8    perceptions in such a way that people come to allow for 

                9    and to expect academic excellence from a Latino student, 

               10    academic excellence from a black student, but you have to 

               11    have an experience with those students and you must have 

               12    those students represented on the campus in sizable enough 

               13    number so that across the very disciplinary areas you have 

               14    critical masses of those students, those students are 

               15    performing, and those students are helping to provide the 

               16    dynamic for this institutional change that is necessary to 

               17    change those stereotypic views and to produce different 

               18    educational and academic outcomes for black students, for 

               19    Chicano-Latino students and so on. 

               20      Q   And as a matter of recent history, the history of the 

               21    last couple of decades, have there been changes in national 

               22    aggregate data that either support or refute your views 

               23    about increasing the level of diversity and integration 

               24    and its correlates as regards GPA?

               25      A   I think there has been extensive evidence, and the 













                                                                           166

                1    one book I mentioned, it lists in its bibliography many of 

                2    the other sources, and in my own work I have sources, as 

                3    well, past the Bok and Bowen study, The Shape of the River. 

                4      Q   And can you just summarize what the nature of the 

                5    relationship is between the level of representation of black 

                6    and Latino and other minority communities and the academic 

                7    performance of those groups in the aggregate again?

                8      A   Okay.  In the aggregate, the relationship is a very 

                9    simple one.  If you have a larger presence of those students 

               10    on the campus, the students do better academically, they do 

               11    better in terms of their levels of social adjustment on the 

               12    campus, and indeed, the campus changes in positive ways 

               13    in terms of racial climate and interpersonal racial 

               14    relationships. 

               15      Q   Let me turn your attention to the law school focus 

               16    groups that were carried out as part of the study, turning 

               17    away now from the undergraduate feeder campus focus groups. 

               18            In broad terms, were the conclusions you reached 

               19    based on the law school focus groups similar or different 

               20    in terms of what you found about campus racial climate?

               21      A   They were similar.

               22      Q   Were there differences that you would like to tell us 

               23    about?

               24      A   There actually were some important differences, so 

               25    you had similarity in terms of the finding, for example, of 













                                                                           167

                1    white entitlement, male entitlement, male privilege, white 

                2    privilege.  You had similarity, as well, in terms of this 

                3    link between a climate that's racially hostile and negative 

                4    academic outcomes for students of color, but the findings 

                5    were complicated in the sense that when you looked, for 

                6    example, at Asian Pacific Islander students in the law 

                7    school context, you found more instances, for example, 

                8    of those students talking about experiences with racial 

                9    stereotyping, with racial harassment. 

               10            Similarly, in terms of women and their experiences, 

               11    there was more discussion of sexual stereotyping and sexual 

               12    harassment in the law school context, in a very interesting 

               13    kind of way.  You found that there was kind of a hyper white 

               14    and male kind of dominant structure in the law school. 

               15      Q   What do you mean?

               16      A   Just simply not --

               17      Q   Not that I don't know, by the way.

               18      A   And I was searching for gentle words. 

               19            Simply saying that the environment by virtue of 

               20    its history, its educational approaches, exacerbated many 

               21    of the findings of kind of white male privileging as regards 

               22    the -- there was something about the educational process 

               23    in that setting, there was something about the preparation 

               24    that in many respects by the reports of the people from the 

               25    focus groups that we talked to let males, and white males, 













                                                                           168

                1    particularly, in an especially dominant and privileged 

                2    position, and in a situation and in a kind of status where 

                3    they felt empowered, if you will, to express that dominance 

                4    in terms of their interactions both in the classroom as well 

                5    as in the social spaces of the school of law. 

                6      Q   In your view, is the number of black and Latino 

                7    students at the University of Michigan Law School adequate 

                8    to dispel the negative dynamics that you have talked about 

                9    today?

               10      A   In my view, no, and in the view of -- in the views of 

               11    the people in the focus groups across the board, by the way, 

               12    irrespective of race, no, absolutely not. 

               13      Q   And in the case of this law school, law school 

               14    generally in all likelihood, but this law school in 

               15    particular, in your opinion, would the enrollment of greater 

               16    numbers of minority students help reduce the effects of 

               17    discrimination and bias and racism that you have talked 

               18    about today?

               19      A   I think so, yes, and I think that the history of the 

               20    school proves that point. 

               21      Q   By the way, can you -- I want to turn your attention 

               22    to the Grace Carroll supplement now. 

               23            Is it possible to have a terrible experience in law 

               24    school and still go on to have a good experience as a lawyer 

               25    and do interesting things?













                                                                           169

                1      A   I think absolutely so.  I think that shows in the 

                2    Carroll study which I commissioned and directed.  I mean, 

                3    I basically laid out the parameters for her conducting and 

                4    completing that research.  What we saw is that these were 

                5    some incredible success stories, success stories of people 

                6    who would not have become attorneys but for affirmative 

                7    action, and who indeed talked about some negative aspects 

                8    of their experience at law school, at the University of 

                9    Michigan Law School, but who then went on to excel in their 

               10    professional careers, and who in keeping with findings from 

               11    studies such as Bok and Bowen, and keeping with findings 

               12    of studies such as the work of Rick Lempert, went on to 

               13    disproportionately be engaged in public interest related 

               14    work, if you will, work that was dedicated to uplifting 

               15    their communities and to addressing social problems. 

               16      Q   I want to ask you some questions about the possibility 

               17    of bias in focus group research.  Are you confident in the 

               18    results that you achieved in your study?

               19      A   Very much so. 

               20      Q   What is it that makes you confident that the samples 

               21    weren't biased?

               22      A   The thing to understand and remember is that there was 

               23    a two-stage process in the selection of the students for the 

               24    focus groups, and so we used, first of all, a variety of 

               25    ways to recruit students, e-mails, campus signups, and 













                                                                           170

                1    recruitment of students within classes, but this was to 

                2    recruit the pool of students from which we then assembled 

                3    our focus groups. 

                4            Now, our sample was a purposive sample, it wasn't 

                5    a random sample, but it was purposive, but there was some 

                6    random selection within that purposive selection, and 

                7    particularly what we were intent on doing is filling out 

                8    the sail, so we needed, for example, membership sufficient 

                9    for the white focus group or we needed the sample from 

               10    the -- to sample enough students to fill out the Asian 

               11    Pacific Islander focus group.

               12            So I don't -- I'm very confident that the study 

               13    results weren't biased both for reasons of how we selected 

               14    focus group participants, but equally, if not even more so 

               15    important, was the fact that those focus groups were run 

               16    by experienced professionals who were quite competent 

               17    and effective in their performance of the role as group 

               18    facilitator and so did not allow for any circumstances 

               19    where you were receiving a biased response. 

               20            And then, of course, the final check is to simply 

               21    look at the transcripts and that's why it's so important to 

               22    produce verbatim transcripts.  If there is bias, it shows in 

               23    the verbatim transcripts, and if one looks at those verbatim 

               24    transcripts one does not see any systematic bias.  So I'm 

               25    very confident. 













                                                                           171

                1            I might also add that there is not, beyond the 

                2    simple fact that many of our findings confirm research 

                3    findings from a variety of other data sources.

                4            MS. MASSIE:  Judge, actually, if we could take a 

                5    real five-minute break here, that would be great. 

                6            THE COURT:  Of course.  We will take five minutes. 

                7            And I don't know what Professor Allen's schedule is 

                8    like, but if you wanted to work into the evening so he can 

                9    get -- if he has got a plane or something I would be more 

               10    than happy to accommodate the schedule tonight.

               11            THE WITNESS:  Your pleasure, Your Honor.  Whatever 

               12    your preference.

               13            THE COURT:  Oh, sure, there is a class that's hoping 

               14    you don't show tomorrow.

               15            THE WITNESS:  Thank you, sir.

               16            THE COURT:  But really, we will accommodate your 

               17    schedule.

               18            THE WITNESS:  Okay.  Thank you. 

               19            (Recess taken at 3:54 p.m.)

               20            (Back on the record  at 4:12 p.m.)

               21            THE COURT:  You may be seated.  Thank you.

               22            MS. MASSIE:  We conferred a bit over the break and 

               23    it sounds like I don't have that much more for Professor 

               24    Allen, and it sounds like it would be better for Counsel 

               25    if we then broke for the day.













                                                                           172

                1            THE COURT:  That's fine.  I just wanted to 

                2    accommodate everybody's schedule and I have no problems 

                3    with that. 

                4            Which reminds me, we're probably going to have to 

                5    break on Friday about no later than 4:00.

                6            MS. MASSIE:  Okay.

                7            THE COURT:  If that's okay with everybody.

                8            MS. MASSIE:  No problem. 

                9    BY MS. MASSIE:

               10      Q   We were talking about the recruitment process, the 

               11    process for getting participants in the focus groups before 

               12    the break, and you mentioned some e-mails that had been used 

               13    for recruitment?

               14      A   Yes. 

               15      Q   I would like to ask you to turn to Tabs 176 and 177, 

               16    and for everybody that's trying to find where they are, 

               17    they are in the small volume, supplemental volume.

               18      A   Yes, I have them. 

               19      Q   And if you could just confirm for us that those are 

               20    the e-mails that were used for recruitment purposes for the 

               21    study, I'm not going to dwell on them for a long time, but I 

               22    think they should be part of the record, so I would like to 

               23    move them into evidence.

               24      A   Okay.  Just a second, please.  Yes, these were used 

               25    for recruitment purposes.













                                                                           173

                1      Q   I think you will find that the Berkley one is not 

                2    there.  Was it substantially similar?

                3      A   I basically used -- the answer is yes, the format was 

                4    the same. 

                5            MS. MASSIE:  Judge, I would like to move everything 

                6    in Tabs 176 and 177 into evidence.  177 consist of either 

                7    three or four separate e-mails and since they were used for 

                8    recruiting participants in the focus groups, I think it's 

                9    appropriate they be part of the record.

               10            THE COURT:  Any objection?

               11            MR. KOLBO:  We have no objection.

               12            THE COURT:  Received. 

               13    BY MS. MASSIE:

               14      Q   Did you place any restrictions on students who could 

               15    participate in the focus groups?

               16      A   Yes, I did.  To avoid problems of bias, any students 

               17    who were listed in the action, Intervenors or who were on 

               18    the witness list, were excluded from participation in focus 

               19    groups. 

               20      Q   And again, having read the transcripts, based on your 

               21    experience, based on the quantitative studies that have been 

               22    done up to this point and the other factors you mentioned, 

               23    you're confident that these are very solid results?

               24      A   Very much so.

               25      Q   I'm going to ask you now to summarize for us the 













                                                                           174

                1    findings that you made here and their implications.

                2      A   Okay. 

                3      Q   Let me start off by just asking you a very broad 

                4    question, just, have we made any progress on this front, 

                5    this front of race and higher education, the status of 

                6    minorities in higher education?

                7      A   I think we have made progress.  I say, I'll use the 

                8    term "it's substantial" advisedly, because there is such a 

                9    long road and way yet to be traveled, but relative to where 

               10    we were, say, 40, 45 years ago, we have made substantial 

               11    progress, but the gains have been hard achieved and are in 

               12    some respects very delicately balanced, so still have a ways 

               13    to go, and the achievements that we have made are fragile in 

               14    some respects. 

               15      Q   Fragile in what respect?

               16      A   In the respect, I'll use the example of the UC system.  

               17    The University of California system had made considerable 

               18    progress in diversification, that is, incorporating students 

               19    of different races and ethnicities up to 1995 when the 

               20    UC Regents passed the SP1, SP1 and SP2 restrictions on 

               21    affirmative action, followed by Prop 209. 

               22            Well, when those rules were implemented in the 

               23    very first year, what we saw was a 40 percent decline in 

               24    Chicano-Latino enrollment in the University of California 

               25    system and a 50 percent decline in the African American 













                                                                           175

                1    enrollment.

                2            And just to give you a sense of how stark those 

                3    numbers are, at the University of California-Los Angeles, 

                4    for instance, in the last year's entering class, out of 

                5    4,000 students, mind you, there were only 25 black males 

                6    who weren't scholarship athletes, so -- and this is 

                7    contrasted with pre '95 where those numbers were 

                8    approaching eight times that, so thus the notion of a 

                9    fragile gain. 

               10      Q   Because the gain can be attacked?

               11      A   Precisely.  And overnight, can be erased. 

               12      Q   In your opinion, can we continue to move forward, 

               13    can we build on the gains that we have made?

               14      A   I think absolutely, yes. 

               15      Q   How do we do that?

               16      A   I think we do it by staying the course, by continuing 

               17    to do the things that we had been doing to change the 

               18    pattern of participation in higher education, to increase 

               19    rates of participation from under-represented or 

               20    non-existent groups like Chicano-Latino students and 

               21    African American students and what have you. 

               22      Q   And in your opinion, would continuing to take measures 

               23    that increase the representation of under-represented 

               24    minority groups improve the academic outcomes and 

               25    performance of members of those groups?













                                                                           176

                1      A   I would say definitely, yes.

                2            MS. MASSIE:  Thank you.  I have nothing else. 

                3            THE COURT:  It was your agreement that we break 

                4    now, is that it, or do you want to continue? 

                5            Let's continue.  It's up to you, really.  Is it 

                6    okay with you, Mr. Payton?

                7            MR. PAYTON:  I'm the one that has to actually leave 

                8    here by 5:00, but I can continue.

                9            THE COURT:  If you would like to break now, you tell 

               10    me when you want to break.  If you want to do it now, if you 

               11    want to do it -- whatever you would like to do, perfectly 

               12    fine. 

               13            MR. PAYTON:  Let's go.

               14            THE COURT:  And I'm not sure how far you have to go 

               15    or whatever you have, but you can tell me and if I don't 

               16    hear from you before, right at 5:00 we will break, how's 

               17    that?  

               18                CROSS EXAMINATION

               19    BY MR. PAYTON:

               20      Q   Good afternoon, Professor Allen.

               21      A   Good afternoon, Attorney Payton. 

               22      Q   I want to ask you some questions that I intend to 

               23    be broader, and broader with respect to your expertise in 

               24    sociology and education and race, so you could look at sort 

               25    of where we are and what these issues are really all about 













                                                                           177

                1    in context. 

                2            So let me ask you about the continuing salience 

                3    of race in our society today.  What's the significance 

                4    of race today; is it less, more, the same, what is it?

                5      A   Race continues to be powerfully significant in 

                6    our society.  At the same time, the ways in which it is 

                7    significant and salient have shifted or changed to some 

                8    degree, and I'll elaborate. 

                9            Race continues to matter for African Americans, 

               10    but at the same time, the sort of status of the African 

               11    American population has changed in some important ways, 

               12    so for example, you have a more sizable black middle class 

               13    than you did, say, 35, 40 years ago, but race continues to 

               14    matter in the lives of that black middle class in ways 

               15    large and small. 

               16            So the research shows us that race matters for 

               17    blacks of status in terms of encounters with police, police 

               18    profiling, for example, in terms of relative wealth compared 

               19    to whites who are also middle class, so I'm simply saying 

               20    that race still matters, but it's become complicated by 

               21    some of the changes in society. 

               22      Q   Let me ask you about a term you used.  You -- I'm 

               23    going to fumble it a little bit, but you talked about 

               24    micro aspects, micro assaults?

               25      A   Micro aggressions, yes. 













                                                                           178

                1      Q   Micro aggressions?

                2      A   Yes. 

                3      Q   So racially motivated micro aggressions?

                4      A   Yes, sir, that's correct. 

                5      Q   Give us the -- I'm going to quibble with the term, 

                6    micro, because it sounds like it belittles the impact of 

                7    race in those encounters.  Are micro assaults insignificant?

                8      A   Not at all.  And that's exactly the argument we make 

                9    in terms of the cumulative effect of micro aggression. 

               10            Now, the micro simply refers to the form of 

               11    the racial aggression, not its impact, and not how it 

               12    influences the person who is the target of it, and it's 

               13    to differentiate from major racial assaults, some of which 

               14    are physical, and certainly all of which are much more 

               15    overt. 

               16            So this is a covert form of racial aggression, but 

               17    when we use the term, micro aggression, we're simply trying 

               18    to make clear that these are in the form of, for example, 

               19    insults and throw-aside remarks that are seemingly 

               20    insignificant, but that in fact have a very powerful 

               21    cumulative effect, so thus the notion of micro.

               22      Q   I guess I want to say it another way. 

               23            Is it micro to -- let's just take the African 

               24    American.  Is it micro to the African American who is 

               25    the recipient of the assault or is it micro to the white 













                                                                           179

                1    observer of the incident?  I don't understand the word, 

                2    micro.

                3      A   I'll try to be responsive, because I resonate with 

                4    the question.  It's actually micro to both, but not the 

                5    same, to the same degree. 

                6            Essentially, what we are talking about is incidents 

                7    or events that are, as I said, seemingly insignificant or 

                8    simple or very small offenses in the relative scheme of 

                9    things.  In other words, some observers have talked about 

               10    a new racism versus an old racism, and so the old racism 

               11    would be quite overt and be presented in the form of major 

               12    aggressions, either physical or certainly in terms of 

               13    utterances and slurs that could not be misinterpreted. 

               14            The new racism is a little more genteel and covert 

               15    and so rather than the most blatant utterances, using 

               16    language and interactions in a way that were slight or were 

               17    small insults, but at the end of the day the cumulative 

               18    effect of twenty slights or twenty micro aggressions equaled 

               19    to the effect and force of a major racial insult. 

               20            So it's more a sort of technical term used by social 

               21    scientists and actually borrowed from the work of a famous 

               22    black psychiatrist at Harvard, Chester Pierce, but certainly 

               23    did not want to leave the notion of micro as meaning just 

               24    small and meaningless, but rather, micro referring to the 

               25    size of the insult, if you will, but the racial intent is 













                                                                           180

                1    very clear and it's very powerful in its negative influence. 

                2      Q   Now, you spoke in your testimony of some number of 

                3    these incidents actually being the result of ignorance.  

                4    Is that -- are most of them the result of ignorance?

                5      A   I would say many.  I don't know necessarily that most, 

                6    but a sizable percentage would be the result of ignorance.  

                7    I mean, comments in the class that the focus groups would 

                8    reveal, a young lady quit innocently, honestly saying, but 

                9    in a very negative -- having a negative, powerful impact on 

               10    the person of color hearing it, oh, you know, she had seen 

               11    information in the class that talked about a white gang, 

               12    and her response was, and I'm saying again, a very innocent 

               13    response, oh, I thought gangs were only with black people, 

               14    that they only had black gangs, and so for her, it's -- 

               15    you give her the benefit of the doubt and that it was an 

               16    innocent remark, but it is a micro aggression, a racial 

               17    insult that has a cumulative effect.

               18      Q   Actually, take that example.  That example could have 

               19    a devastating effect on some of the minority students who 

               20    were present to hear it, isn't that right?

               21      A   This is very true.

               22      Q   It could undermine their own self-concept, their 

               23    willingness to participate?

               24      A   Particularly if it was at the end of a day of such 

               25    small comments and such small insults. 













                                                                           181

                1            Let's take one that's less charged.  The African 

                2    American male on campus who is presumed to be an athlete 

                3    before he opens his mouth, and even in cases where they 

                4    don't necessarily have the physique of an athlete, you 

                5    know, you maybe make allowances if I'm a guy who weighs 

                6    350 pounds, and maybe then it's not a certain jump, but 

                7    maybe, but for an African American male who time and time 

                8    again, the first comment is, what sport do you play, it's -- 

                9    and when you think about the person asking the question, 

               10    what that person is doing is operating out of a set of 

               11    normative assumptions that presume that African American 

               12    males would be athletes if they are on that campus, but for 

               13    the male who is hearing it, it doesn't obviously -- it 

               14    obviously doesn't have quite the force of a flat-out slur, 

               15    but over time you get tired of hearing it and over time it 

               16    begins to take its toll.

               17      Q   Now, in response to, I think, my first or second 

               18    question you talked about the increasing numbers of African 

               19    Americans that are middle class and how race may still 

               20    affect them.  Let me talk about other economic groups, say 

               21    poor people, poor white people, poor African Americans, 

               22    living in similar circumstances.  Does race nevertheless 

               23    affect those poor African Americans so that their lives 

               24    are different from the poor white men?

               25      A   Absolutely. 













                                                                           182

                1      Q   How is that?

                2      A   The poor whites are still entitled and privileged 

                3    just by virtue of whiteness.  As a group of researchers who 

                4    talk about the wages of whiteness, literally, whiteness 

                5    brings its own privilege in this society, because you have 

                6    access that people of color don't have, you have certain 

                7    rights and privileges that people of color don't have, so 

                8    even though you may be in the same economic circumstance, 

                9    and even that is open to debate because research shows that 

               10    class doesn't mean the same thing across race, I mean, but 

               11    the point is that controlling for the assumption of class, 

               12    whiteness is a resource in a society that values whiteness, 

               13    that rewards whiteness, and that creates opportunities for 

               14    whiteness that are not available for those of color.

               15      Q   Let me go to the other end.  Very high income white 

               16    Americans, very high income Hispanic Americans, very high 

               17    income African Americans, does race -- is there an income 

               18    level where, take an African American, they are insulated 

               19    from the effect of race in our society?

               20      A   Absolutely not.  Obviously, income and economic 

               21    standing makes a difference, and especially in our society, 

               22    but for wealthy African Americans compared to wealthy 

               23    whites, the advantage still goes to wealthy whites. 

               24            Research such as Melvin Oliver and Shapiro, a study 

               25    of relative race wealth shows, for example, that African 













                                                                           183

                1    Americans at the same income level as whites are still 

                2    more insecure economically; that is, their earnings are 

                3    the source of their economic standing more so than family 

                4    accumulated wealth, so they have less wealth than does 

                5    their white counterpart and wealth in the form of 

                6    accumulated assets like the home, like stocks and bonds, 

                7    and so on, and this is just a function of the historical 

                8    difference in terms of the two racial groups and blacks 

                9    being systematically undeveloped economically in this 

               10    society by virtue of 300 years of slavery, followed by 

               11    100 years of Jim Crow, and following on the heels of 

               12    that continuing discrimination. 

               13      Q   Now, you mentioned that there are two basic, I would 

               14    say, institutions, parts of our society, where it's possible 

               15    to have a lot of interracial relationships, work, you said, 

               16    and higher education, college, and I take it the reason 

               17    those two are there is because we're segregated most of 

               18    the other places; is that right?

               19      A   Absolutely, absolutely true. 

               20      Q   Okay.

               21      A   We're segregated residentially as a society. 

               22      Q   So let's focus on college.  When you talked about 

               23    what happens at predominantly white colleges or the feeder 

               24    schools that you did your focus groups with, and you talked 

               25    about the fact that in spite of the negatives almost all of 













                                                                           184

                1    your minority responses still found sufficient positives 

                2    that they would go there again; is that right?

                3      A   Yes, absolutely. 

                4      Q   Were you surprised by that?

                5      A   Not really, mainly because I have taught on these 

                6    campuses and I have in my own personal experience that kind 

                7    of an experience.  I basically was raised in Kansas City,  

                8    Missouri in the time when the city was segregated and so all 

                9    of my experience through high school was in segregated high 

               10    schools, and I made a conscious decision that I needed to 

               11    spend some time in a predominantly white setting, and plus 

               12    the opportunities were there, so I went from that literally 

               13    all-black environment to what was essentially an all-white 

               14    environment in southern Wisconsin at a very small school 

               15    there and just the benefits that accrued to me educationally 

               16    and in terms of growing as a person, along with, of course, 

               17    the struggles and the strains and the stresses. 

               18            So from a personal point of view, I wasn't 

               19    surprised, nor was I surprised from the point of view of 

               20    prior research that I had done where, like a drum beat, and 

               21    consistently students of color, after talking about and 

               22    sharing their pain and the struggle, said that on balance it 

               23    was a valuable opportunity, it was an opportunity they had 

               24    to take advantage of, and, you know, given the opportunity, 

               25    they would accept it again, even with a knowledge and 













                                                                           185

                1    understanding of the kinds of strains and challenges that 

                2    would be there.

                3      Q   I want to stand back just a little bit from that, 

                4    because I think you also said that it turned out to be a 

                5    benefit for all of the students at those colleges and 

                6    universities where there was that diversity, that everyone 

                7    benefitted.  Did that help deal with some of the ignorance 

                8    that was the cause of some of the incidents?

                9      A   Absolutely so.  And the benefit flowing from such 

               10    diversity is maximized to the extent that the numbers of 

               11    students of color on the campus are increased, because 

               12    that's a heavy burden. 

               13            That's another job for those students, by the way.  

               14    As one student talked about it at Harvard, she is an 

               15    ambassador, so in addition to her regular business of 

               16    school, she had to educate people about what it means to 

               17    be an African American and to answer questions and to be an 

               18    ambassador.

               19            And so to the extent that that burden is shared more 

               20    broadly, that is, you have more students of color, then it 

               21    becomes beneficial for both groups.  It's a problem if 

               22    it's a situation where you have tokenism and so you just 

               23    have a few students of color carrying that heavy burden of 

               24    befriending and educating their much larger white student 

               25    peer population. 













                                                                           186

                1      Q   I want you to stand back a little bit further and just 

                2    look at this as a sociologist or looking at our society.  

                3    How important is it to our society that we have that kind 

                4    of diversity and that kind of exchange and education take 

                5    place in our colleges and universities for the health of 

                6    our society?

                7      A   It's absolutely vital, it's life and death vital, 

                8    because we are a cultural and racially diverse society 

                9    living within and working and having exchanges within a 

               10    cultural and diverse and racially diverse global community.  

               11    So it's absolutely essential that our elite, that our 

               12    educated population, have those kinds of experiences and 

               13    that they learn about that wider reality so that they can 

               14    interact with it more effectively to the benefit of the 

               15    larger society.

               16      Q   I think we also heard from some of your testimony that 

               17    a number of the alumni from these colleges, from Michigan, 

               18    from Michigan Law School, go on to very important public 

               19    careers, some become leaders, some go back to the community, 

               20    civic activities, all sorts of involvement.

               21            How important is it that our future leaders be 

               22    educated in an atmosphere in which there is this diverse 

               23    population, this interchange of ideas and experiences, and 

               24    this mechanism to try to deal with some of this ignorance?

               25      A   I think it's vitally important for the benefit of the 













                                                                           187

                1    larger society, and it's striking that many of the larger 

                2    corporations have this understanding clearly in front of 

                3    them and know from their own experiences and the economic 

                4    world the value of a diverse work force and the value of 

                5    leadership that has training and experience with diverse 

                6    racial and ethnic communities. 

                7            MR. PAYTON:  Thank you very much.

                8            THE COURT:  Thank you.  Plaintiff, would you like 

                9    to wait until tomorrow?

               10            MR. KOLBO:  I would.  I would, Your Honor.  I could 

               11    be more efficient if I could, as well.

               12            THE COURT:  That's what we said we were going to do.

               13            Professor, enjoy your evening in Detroit.  I know 

               14    you're used to it, being from Michigan.

               15            And we will see you all tomorrow at 9:00.  Thanks.  

               16    We will stand adjourned. 

               17            COURT CLERK:  All rise.  

               18            (Proceedings adjourned.)

               19                   -- --- -- 

               20    

               21    

               22    

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                                                                           188

                1                             CERTIFICATE

                2                     I, JOAN L. MORGAN, Official Court Reporter 

                3    for the United States District Court for the Eastern 

                4    District of Michigan, appointed pursuant to the provisions 

                5    of Title 28, United States Code, Section 753, do hereby 

                6    certify that the foregoing proceedings were had in the 

                7    within entitled and number cause of the date hereinbefore 

                8    set forth; and I do further certify that the foregoing 

                9    transcript has been prepared by me or under my direction.

               10    

               11                                    ____________________________

               12                                    JOAN L. MORGAN, CSR

               13                                    Official Court Reporter

               14                                    Detroit, Michigan  48226

               15    

               16      Date: _______________________

               17    

               18    

               19    

               20    

               21    

               22    

               23    

               24    

               25    


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