Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Revisiting Grutter v. Bollinger (Affirmative Action in Law School)

In light of my current application process to law school and our recent posts on race-relation/ diversity, I felt the following case was worthy of taking a closer look at. This case is about a white applicant that applied to the University of Michigan School of Law, and was denied.

She filed suit claiming that she was discriminated against on the basis of race, and that the Law school's admissions criteria that factored race was in violation of the fourteenth amendment in the United States Constitution.

Grutter v .Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306

The court, in a 5 - 4 decision held in facor of the University of Michigan, stating:

"Narrowly-tailored use, by public law school, of race in admissions decisions, to further compelling interest in educational benefits of diverse student body held not to violate (1) Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause, or (2) 42 USCS ยงยง 1981 and 2000d."

As any court decision can always be analyzed after the fact, subject to criticisms from scholars and critics, I am more interested what you're opinion of this judgement is.

First, do you agree with the court that using race as a factor is legal and justified?

Second, do you feel that affirmative action serves this "compelling interest" in public unversities?

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