Information on Admissions Lawsuits — University of Michigan

Amicus Briefs—Summary of Arguments
Gratz v. Bollinger

1. NOW Legal Defense & Education Fund

Compliance with U.S. international treaty obligations supports the finding that LSA’s interest in giving attention to race in selecting students is compelling constitutional mandates.
U.S. treaty law permits affirmative action and imposes affirmative duty to assure equality.
High courts of other nations have upheld affirmative action under comparable circumstances.

2. Ohio State University College of Law Faculty

A critical mass of minority students is necessary to obtain the educational benefits of diversity; seeking a critical mass is not a quota or set-aside.
Professional achievements of minority graduates from OSU corroborate the Lempert Study.
Career success of minority lawyers cannot be explained as ongoing affirmative action, but does demonstrate value of a diverse student group.
The background and career of Dean Williams exemplify the educational benefits of diversity.

3. Fortune 500 Companies

Pursuit of diversity in higher education is a compelling state interest because it prepares all students to succeed in and enhance the global community.

4. American Council on Education, et al

Diversity improves the quality of higher education and is essential to the basic purposes of higher education by fostering the examined life, preparing students for citizenship, enhancing education for economic and scientific progress, and breaking down barriers to advance the chief purpose of higher education.
Racial and ethnic diversity is valuable to the world in which we live.
Research confirms that racial and ethnic diversity improve educational outcomes.
Colleges and universities require/are entitled to latitude, based on their judgment and experience, in determining how to assemble student bodies.
Supreme Court precedent and the consensus of educators show that diversity in higher education serves a compelling interest.

5. The Civil Rights Project, Harvard University

Promoting educational diversity is a compelling governmental interest.
Social science studies support the compelling governmental interest in promoting diversity.
UM’s undergraduate admissions policies are narrowly tailored.

6. Stanford Institute for Higher Education Research

The Court should reject National Association of Scholars’ (NAS) brief as an improper attempt to supplement the record, especially since plaintiffs conceded the significant educational benefits of racial diversity to all students.
The NAS brief and the Wood & Sherman Report are pervaded by methodological errors and fail to overcome the district court’s findings concerning the significant educational benefits of student racial diversity.
NAS misreads the Supreme Court’s opinion in Wygant in a failed attempt to place an evidentiary burden on the University.

7. International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace & Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW)

Bakke must be read to permit affirmative action programs that allow for individualized consideration of applications in which racial diversity is used as a �plus� factor with respect to racial minorities who would otherwise be under-represented in the student body.
The importance of diversity to the educational experience (and UAW’s history of involvement with issues of civil rights and diversity).
Students’ perception that their educational experiences play an important role in their ability to maintain strong/effective working relationships with people from different races and cultures is correct.

8. Attorney General of Ohio

Fourteenth Amendment does not prohibit state universities from adopting race-sensitive admissions policies in an effort to achieve diversity among the student body.
All persons are born with equal intrinsic worth; race-sensitive admissions policies do not necessarily violate the fundamental principle of civic equality; and diversity among students in a public university can be achieved in a Constitutional manner.

9. Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law

District Court correctly applied Supreme Court’s ruling in Bakke establishing diversity as a compelling state interest.
Alternatively, there are other grounds that support affirmance of the lower court’s decision, including remediation, remedying past discrimination, and the Thirteenth Amendment.

10. General Motors

Institutions of higher education have a compelling interest in selecting diverse student bodies.
Success in today’s business world demands cross-cultural competence and the ability to view problems from multiple perspectives � skills best learned in diverse academic environments.
Elimination of affirmative action in educational institutions would deprive businesses of well-trained minority candidates who are essential to our nation’s economic success.

11. Michigan Attorney General

The University’s choice to seek to attain a diverse student body to advance its educational mission falls within the institutional autonomy afforded by the First Amendment and is, therefore, permissible under the Fourteenth Amendment.
The University’s choice to enroll a diverse student body is entitled to deference under article 8, section 5 of Michigan’s Constitution.