Sarah Tillery

March 14, 2010

(Pi Day)

AP Government E Block

Grutter v. Bollinger

The case Grutter v. Bollinger was decided upon in 2003, at a time when the United States was beginning the Iraq war and nearing the end of the first term in George W. Bush’s presidency. During this time, the Department of Homeland Security was first created, and the country was still on high alert after September 11^th. A month before this case, President George W. Bush declared Mission Accomplished regarding what most viewed as the entire war in Iraq, but specifically referring to the end of “major combat” in the war. The media during this time was abundantly focused on the trials and errors of the Bush Administration and the goings on in Washington, and everything from Martha Stewart getting arrested to Supreme Court cases such as this one were given a lot (some might argue proportionally too much) of media attention. This case in particular led to the Michigan State Constitution changing regarding race-based admissions policies. 

The justices in the case were Justice Sandra Day O’Conner, giving the opinion, and Justices Rehnquist, Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas giving the dissent, along with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Justices Souter, Breyer, and Stevens. The story behind the case was very similar to the case Bakke v. Regents of University of California.  In Grutter,  a young white Michigan girl applying to The University of Michigan’s Law School (referred to throughout the case as Law School) was put on the waiting list and later rejected by the school. The young girl in question, Ms. Barbara Grutter, brought this matter to court because she was convinced that the school rejected her based on a racial quota that the school had to meet in order to maintain a level of diversity. Her grades and test scores fit the bill for the Law School’s standard: Ms. Grutter had a 3.8 GPA and 161 on the LSATs. However, the Law School had made it clear to applicants that the admissions directors looked at more than just grades: they looked at the whole person, including essays, scores, teacher recommendations, their background, their activities, school career, everything. In 1992, the Dean of the school requested that the admissions committee also implement a “soft” choice focused on race, to allow under recognized or potentially disadvantaged people of other races such as African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, and Native Americans a higher chance of being admitted. The Law school’s specific request of an admitted student is that they provide a “substantial promise for success in law school” and “a strong likelihood of succeeding in the practice of law and contributing in diverse ways to the well-being of others” as well as being “students with varying backgrounds and experiences who will respect and learn from each other.” The District Court filed in favor of Ms. Grutter, but the  Court of Appeals was in favor of the Law School, citing the decision from Bakke v. Regents, in which Justice Powell held that affirmative action programs are constitutional, but racial quotas are not.

The case then came to the Supreme Court, where one of Ms. Grutter’s main arguments was that the Law School’s program was fulfilling a racial quota as opposed to being simply an affirmative action program, leading to the overall question of the case: “This case requires us to decide whether the use of race as a factor in student admissions by the University of Michigan Law School (Law School) is unlawful.” Ms. Grutter brought in an expert who examined the statistics of the acceptance rate of the students at the Law School, and found that “membership in certain minority groups ‘is an extremely strong factor in the decision for acceptance,’” and that applicants from these minority groups “‘are given an extremely large allowance for admission.’” However, the expert also recognized that race was not the deciding factor, nor “the predominant factor in the Law School’s admissions calculus.” The opposing expert, brought by the Law School, also presented data that indicated that of the 35 percent minority applicants who were accepted into the school, “only 10 percent of those applicants would have been admitted” had race not been at least considered. Dr. Raudenbush, the expert for the Law School, argued that “under this scenario, underrepresented minority students would have comprised 4 percent of the entering class in 2000 instead of the actual figure of 14.5 percent....”

Sandra Day O’Conner argued that because of the precedent give by Bakke v. Regents of the University of California, that the determining factor for whether or not the actions of the Law School were constitutional or not is whether or not the race factor in the decision process was the overall deciding factor  and that it was used to make a necessary quota of diversity. The case Bakke v. Regents was very similar to this case, which is why Sandra Day O’Conner argued that it was such a strong precedent for evidence. She even used Justice Powell’s opinion as her evidence rather than the holding of the case itself, which is customary practice. In the case of Bakke v. Regents, a Medical School (Harvard) used a similar affirmative action program to the Law School in question, and a similar student to Ms. Grutter, Mr. Bakke, a young man with a very high grade point average and excellent test scores, was wait-listed and rejected from the school. His arguments were all very similar to Ms. Grutter’s, arguing that the school was trying to fill a racial quota and was discriminating against him and violating his 14^th amendment rights, the same as Ms. Grutter. Justice O’Conner used the precedent and Justice Powell’s opinion to argue that the schools in question in these cases were not using affirmative action as a racial quota, but simply as a temporary measure to help give people who could potentially be discriminated against a fair and unbiased way to be considered. However, the schools assured both Supreme Courts that when the time comes when such actions are necessary, race-blind admissions will be the common practice. While Justice O’Conner hoped for a time limit of 25 years, neither the holding of the Supreme Court nor the Law School assured of any such time frame.

The dissent on the other hand felt that the arguments for the Law School’s program being only a method to achieve fairness and balance were weak and that it seemed to them like a search for a racial quota. Justice Rehnquist argued that they were not clear enough in their description of their admissions process to justify the “soft choice” of race, and that because they did not give a clear cut time frame for how long they would use this affirmative action plan, it can only be assumed that it will keep going to improve its admissions rate statistics, which as precedent has declared, would be unconstitutional.

However, similarly to the case of Bakke v. Regents, the holding for this case deemed affirmative action constitutional, so long as it was not to fulfill a racial quota, and that the Law School did not violate Ms. Grutter’s right. Specifically, it was decided that affirmative action did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment and that it was perfectly lawful.

Personally, I think this is a complicated issue that has been dealt with by the Supreme Court in a very awkward and unclear way. While it sets up a nice compromise, it is not clearly understandable what those guidelines are or how to judge them--- for instance, it says that affirmative action is alright, so long as these “soft” decisions do not affect the overall perception of the student, and while that seems reasonable, it would be very difficult to gauge that and determine whether or not that one aspect was the deciding factor of an applicant. The college admissions process is so much a subjective thing that it cannot really be gauged very well by any reasonable standards, and affirmative action was meant to protect any discrimination against certain citizens because of that. Another issue is that the Court asks that affirmative action processes be done away with in the future, however the schools did not guarantee that that would happen and the Court did not put it in its holding so as to hold them to such a promise. If Affirmative Action is only supposed to be a temporary thing, then why are schools so hesitant to get rid of it? At the time of this case, some would argue it might have been understandable, but it was 2003, 25 years past the age of the Civil Rights Movement and overcoming prejudice. The Court gave the schools another 25 years to use Affirmative Action, but in this day and age, when we have a Black President, a Hispanic woman serving in the Supreme Court, you would think now is the time when Affirmative Action is no longer necessary and that everyone would have equal opportunities to succeed. However, I would not advocate its immediate removal, for I would be afraid that it would diminish the opportunities we have given people now. It is a complex issue because while aspects of having it in place are unconstitutional, not having it would lead to constitutional issues as well. It is surprising to me that we are still in a day and age where race plays such an important role in how people perceive others, but until it is no longer an issue, it would probably be safer to have Affirmative Action than not to have it, so long as it follows the guidelines given by the Court, despite those guidelines being particularly vague.