Supreme Court may hear affirmative action case

Later this year, the US Supreme Court may hear a case arguing a lawsuit arguing the constitutionality of the University of Michigan Law School's affirmative action policy. If the court decides to hear the case, its final decision could set a standard that would affect the admissions practices of public universities across the nation.

The attorneys general of Alabama, Delaware, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia, as well as the US Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, supported the request. The states requested "a clear standard that can be applied uniformly throughout the country."

The state of California also voted to eliminate the use affirmative action in a statewide referendum in 1995, and Florida Governor Jeb Bush pushed through legislation in 1999 to ban any use of race in college admission procedures.

Though Tufts, as a private school, would not be affected by any Supreme Court decision, the issue is germane to the University as well.

Tufts has an Affirmative Action Program wherein the University bears "the responsibility for making every effort to identify and alleviate underutilization of minorities," but it does not set specific rules as to how this is implemented _ and what role this plays in admissions. Tufts admissions officers said that they view applications on a case-by-case basis.

Administrators said that many different factors come together in evaluating a prospective student application. "Cultural sophistication" is one important player in admissions decisions, Dean of the Colleges Charles Inouye said. "It makes sense that a university like Tufts would try to get a mix of different backgrounds represented," he said.

An affirmative action admissions policy works on multiple levels, according to PJ Andrews, co-coordinator of the Multiracial Organization of Students at Tufts (MOST). "It gives [minority students] the opportunity to get into universities that they wouldn't normally have the opportunity to get into and have a higher chance of success," he said.

The lawsuit lawyers are asking the Supreme Court to hear began in 1997 when Barbara Grutter, a white female, was denied admission to the University of Michigan law school and sued the institution for having an allegedly discriminatory admission policy. US District Judge Bernard Friedman ruled in favor the plaintiff in March of 2001, declaring Michigan's admissions policies unconstitutional.

The University of Michigan appealed the case. On May 14 of this year, the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed the decision by ruling in favor of the University.

The Court of Appeals cited 1978's California v. Bakke to determine that race is a valid qualification in student admissions. The Supreme Court had ruled that while schools may not set quotas of minority students to fill, they may take race into consideration when evaluating an application. The states' governments are looking for the Supreme Court to clarify Bakke.

Some Tufts students don't see why any clarification is necessary. It is the historical hardships suffered by people of color which make affirmative action necessary, Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate's Pan African Alliance (PAA) Culture Representative Candace Gomez said. "It would be preposterous to believe that the integration of schools would have been possible without legal and institutional reformations," she said.

But race-based admissions policies are inappropriate for addressing the many cases of historical discrimination, Friedman wrote in his ruling against the University of Michigan in 2001.

Some fear that affirmative action may be systematically decrease white students' chances for admittance to universities. In her case against Michigan, Grutter argued that while more qualified white students are overlooked, exceptions may be made for minorities.

In Tufts' evaluation, Inouye explained, students' qualifications include more than their grade point average (GPA) and test score. There are other admissions standards.

"The message is not that the institution is unfair, the message is that the institution values various aspects of a person's profile in different ways," Inouye said. "An athlete, for example, brings a certain ability to the campus that a non-athlete does not."

The acceptance of lesser-qualified candidates is not a Tufts policy, Gomez said. "There is not one female or minority student at Tufts who was accepted on the basis of their race or gender," she said. "A comprehensive look at their qualifications [shows that admitted females and minorities] are absolutely up to the standards of their white, male counterparts."

Such policies do not intend to give students of color an unfair advantage, according to Gomez. "Affirmative action does not guarantee admission," she said. "It simply broadens the pool and serves as an incentive for admissions to consider applicants who have traditionally been overlooked."

In fact, as the courts argue on the issue, some feel that schools need to keep pursuing diversity policies _ as Andrews pointed out, white students still make up a clear majority on college campuses. "When you look at racial numbers across university campuses, there's not a real problem where white students aren't getting into college just because students of color are taking away all their spots," he said.

A diverse learning environment is largely beneficial for schools like Tufts because it teaches cooperation and understanding, Inouye said. "When I teach a class, the discussion is tremendously more rich because we have a lot of minds at work coming from different angles," he said.

But a varied student body is just one step for encouraging diversity, Inouye said. Tufts also has a strict foreign language requirement, a strong international relations program, and an opportunity for study abroad for this reason. "We want Tufts to be the place to come to school if you're interested in understanding diversity, whether domestic or international." he said.