Bush to join fight against UM's affirmative action program

Jan 15 19:34 UTC 2003

From wire reports, the White House (Bush) is going to file a brief against
the U of M and the case before the Supreme Court over UM's affirmative
action plan.  What do you think of this and which side are you on?


"WH intervention expected on affirmative action case
University admissions program under scrutiny
From John King and Dana Bash
CNN Washington Bureau
Wednesday, January 15, 2003 Posted: 1:38 PM EST (1838 GMT)


   
The Bush administration is preparing to oppose affirmative action plan in
Supreme Court case.  
 
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The White House is expected to file a brief by
Thursday with the U.S. Supreme Court opposing a University of Michigan
affirmative action program, according to administration officials. 

Such a move would immerse the administration in a politically and socially
charged subject at a time when Republicans are trying to recover from a
racially tinged firestorm in the Senate and reach out to minority voters. 

Details of the brief are still being finalized, the officials said, but
the White House is expected to argue that there are better ways to promote
diversity than the program that gives preference to African-Americans and
Hispanics applying to the university. 

The expected move was being closely watched on Capitol Hill by Democrats
who say Republicans have failed to encourage racial diversity. 

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, while declining to discuss Bush's
plans, said the president met with his advisers last night on the matter. 

"Diversity is an important goal," said Fleischer. 

"The challenge is to focus on encouraging diversity without using quotas,"
Fleischer said, adding that the president has "longstanding" opposition to
quotas. 

White students opposed to the program filed suit against the University of
Michigan, and the Supreme Court's decision on the case will be key in
defining the role of affirmative action in America. 

Bush is still deciding what kind of statement to make in the brief, but
could argue that while diversity in higher education is important, the
University of Michigan's program is not constitutional. It is unclear,
however, whether the administration would argue that race could not be
considered at all as a factor. 

Conservatives have been arguing that it is important for the
administration to take a stand against racial preferences. 

A senior administration official says Solicitor General Ted Olson sent an
e-mail to the White House arguing for a strong brief opposing the Michigan
program and racial preferences in general. 

But it is a politically sensitive issue for the president and Republicans
who have been trying to reach out to minorities, especially in the wake of
the controversy surrounding Sen. Trent Lott's comments praising Sen. Strom
Thurmond's segregationist 1948 presidential bid. 

Many civil rights activists have also been angered by the president's
judicial nominees, most recently that of Charles Pickering, a Mississippi
judge renominated to a federal appeals court. They've described Pickering
as racially insensitive and questioned his commitment to civil rights. 

When he was governor of Texas, Bush opposed racial preferences at state
universities, opting instead for a program he calls "affirmative access,"
making the top 10 percent of all high school students eligible for
admissions. 

Fleischer described the case as "particularly important" for "all
Americans." 

"It could potentially lead to a definition across the nation about what
standards are allowable in terms of society dealing with questions about
admissions and race," Fleischer said. 

The White House does not have to file a friend of the court brief, but in
cases as high profile as this, it is common practice. 

The brief is due at the Supreme Court by Thursday. 

Senate Minority Tom Daschle, D-South Dakota, told reporters Wednesday that
how the administration weighs in will be "a watershed moment" for
Republicans on the question of diversity. 

"I think the burden of proof will be on the administration, I think the
burden of proof will be on Republicans to show us how they can be for
diversity and yet be against the laws that promulgate diversity," Daschle
said. "That, I think, is a hard case to make, but I look forward to their
response." 

response 2 of 232:

Jan 15 19:44 UTC 2003

How many total points are there? 

response 4 of 232:

Jan 15 20:46 UTC 2003

If I am not mistaken, Yale is a private school and the University of 
Michigan is tax supported.

response 6 of 232:

Jan 15 21:51 UTC 2003

Re #4: But the point is, he still benefited from a policy that discriminates
based on a factor that has nothing to do with academic achievement.  That
makes it hypocritical of him to denounce affirmative action.

response 8 of 232:

Jan 15 22:11 UTC 2003

Why should academic achievement be the only criterion for admission to a
public university? The nation needs a lot of educated and(or) trained
people to serve its needs, but academic achievement is not the only
measure of how and how well, or if, they can serve. 

For example, minority communities need doctors and lawyers and other
professionals. Therefore educational institutions need to educate people
desiring to work in such communities. That is very likely to be minorities
themselves. How else do you help ensure that all communities can obtain
the professional services they need? This means that minorities should be
attracted into those professions, which implies in some sense encouraging
or supporting their enrollment. There are scholarships for minorities
(which no one seems to be objecting to), but first students need to be
admitted to use such scholarships. 

Discrimination because of race has not yet disappeared from our society.
While it is still present, I believe there should be compensating efforts
made to assist those discriminated against. 

response 10 of 232:

Jan 16 00:36 UTC 2003

re #7:

> I'd rather know that my doctor earned his way into med school because he got
> A's, not because of quotas.  (regardless of what race he is)

Of course you would.  And if affirmative action preferences were weighted so
heavily in admissions that a person with a B or C average could get admitted
at the expense of a candidate with solid As, you might have a point.  As used
by most admissions programs, however, the usefulness of the affirmative-action
bonus is largely limited to discriminating between two students with "A"
averages, or at most between an "A-" student and an "A" student.  Unfortunately
for your argument, medical school admissions are so competitive that a good
school can easily fill every available slot with an "A" student, affirmative
action or no, if that's what the school wants to look for in its candidates..

response 12 of 232:

Jan 16 01:47 UTC 2003

Someone up there asked how many "points" were required for admission.  
There's a possible maximum of 150; 100 generally guarantees admission, 
90-99 gets one on the waitlist, and a sub90 gets a rejection.  The 
points are outlined at 
http://www.umich.edu/~mrev/archives/1999/summer/chart.htm

So, if I understand the system, the plaintiffs must have scored in the 
sub-100 range, which would seem to mean that there's no guarantee that 
they would have been admitted regardless of their race or that of 
others. 

response 14 of 232:

Jan 16 01:57 UTC 2003

I'm working on a substitute for affirmative action. This would involve
an evaluation of the damage done to individual's lives by discrimination
and then a committment to provide those classes of individuals with
benefits equivalent to the losses from discrimination. In this way,
those opposed to this kind of affirmative action could eliminate it
by eliminating discrimination. 

I'm still working on the details, but that's the general idea.

response 16 of 232:

Jan 16 03:02 UTC 2003

Flat rate for everyone.  no legacy, no other options.  You either pass the
requirements, or you go to another college.

response 18 of 232:

Jan 16 06:21 UTC 2003

I like the idea of the "top 10%" plan. It meets my criteriion of offering
college education to all demographics, equally. It is, of course a form of
"quota system" (10%) and like affirmative action also gives admission to
some students much less qualified than others. However this is all hidden
from view in a cloak of seeming fairness. It is the magic of what you can
do with numbers.