Equal Opportunity for higher education? I don't think so...

Someone please explain to me how MERIT BASED ADMISSIONS puts an UNDUE BURDEN on minorities and women. This is really infuriating.

State to fight ruling against ban on race in college admissions
Jennifer Chambers, Robert Snell and Oralandar Brand-Williams/ The Detroit News

Detroit— Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette said today he will appeal a court ruling that overturned the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, which bans the use of race and gender preferences in college admissions and government hiring and contracting.

Schuette said he will make a formal request for a rehearing with the appeals court, a move that will keep the civil rights initiative — known as Proposal 2 — in place at least temporarily.

"MCRI embodies the fundamental premise of what America is all about: equal opportunity under the law," Schuette said in a statement. "Entrance to our great universities must be based upon merit, and I will continue the fight for equality, fairness and rule of law."

A federal appeals court today overturned Proposal 2, saying the voter-approved measure harms minorities and is unconstitutional.

The 2006 law forced the University of Michigan and other state schools to revise their admission policies. In a 2-1 decision, the judges ruled that the law violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

The court in particular objected to the inclusion of the voter-approved ban in the Michigan Constitution in its 59-page ruling.

"Proposal 2 reorders the political process in Michigan to place special burdens on minority interests," judges R. Guy Cole Jr. and Martha Craig Daughtrey said.

The ban, passed with 58 percent of the vote nearly five years ago, affected government hiring as well as college admissions.

In 2008, a federal judge in Detroit upheld the law, saying it was race-neutral.

George Washington, the chief attorney for the law's opponents, applauded the decision today.

"It's a great victory. It means affirmative action is legal again in college admissions. It means that thousands of talented black, Latino and Native Americans can go to our public universities," Washington said.

Jennifer Gratz, who headed the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative ballot proposal, said she doesn't think the ruling is going to stand long term because the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled initiatives than ban ran preferences are constitutional.

"To me, this is the epitome of an activist court. These justices held onto this ruling for years and released it the day before the holiday weekend. They were hoping they would catch people off guard and not make the news," said, Gratz, director of the American Civil Rights Institute, a California-based group that advocates against affirmative action.

Ward Connerly, a former University of California regent who was a major backer of Proposal 2 and California's similar Proposition 209, said the ruling means the people have no right to govern their own institutions.

"It's saying the people have no right to insist that everyone be treated equality. It places the ultimate decision in the hands of the university — that they are supreme ones," Connerly said by phone from California. "It's a terrible, terrible decision that will not stand."

Shanta Driver, an attorney in the firm of Scheff, Washington and Driver, which brought the lawsuit to end the ban on affirmative action, said that in light of its victory in the Michigan case, the firm will turn its attention to California. Driver said they plan to file a lawsuit in the 9th U.S. Court of Appeals in California to strike down Proposition 209.

Michigan's two largest public universities, both parties in the lawsuit, said they would study the ruling before responding to it.

"As a party to the litigation, we are in the process of carefully reviewing this complex opinion," Heather Swain, interim vice president of university relations for Michigan State University, said in a statement. "This is a significant issue that impacts universities, and we need to give it thoughtful consideration."

In a statement, University of Michigan spokeswoman Kelly Cunningham said U-M "is reviewing the possible implications of the court's decision, and recognizes that there may be further legal steps as well."

Opponents of Proposal 2 blamed the measure for declines in the percentage of minorities in U-M's freshman classes in the years immediately after the ruling.

Underrepresented minorities made up 12.6 percent of freshmen in fall 2006, the last class fully admitted before the passage of Proposal 2. The proportion of Hispanic, African-American and Native-American students dropped each year afterward, falling to 9.1 percent in 2009.

However, last fall, U-M reported its minority freshman enrollment had rebounded to 10.6 percent.

Gregory Creswell of Detroit gathered signatures for Proposal 2, the ballot initiative banning race and gender in college admissions. He said today he was dismayed by the decision.

"In a free society, politicians should not determine who wins and loses in life. It should be that person based on their merits. I don't want the government being for me because of my skin color or against me," Creswell said.

Victoria Sudul, 22, who just graduated from U-M with a degree in biology, said she supports the ruling overturning Proposal 2.

"I actually think it's a good thing," she said today in Ann Arbor. "I think it's just another window of opportunity for others. I think there are so many other scholarships and awards aimed toward other groups, why not affirmative action?

"I don't understand why people are trying to close the window of opportunity for education."

The activist group By Any Means Necessary, which pursued the lawsuit to overturn Proposal 2, scheduled news conferences at 2 p.m. at the Michigan Union in Ann Arbor and 4 p.m. at 645 Griswold in Detroit to discuss the ruling. The Detroit Branch of the NAACP also scheduled a news conference at 3:30 p.m. to address the decision.

http://detnews.com/article/20110701/...#ixzz1Qt0hDxPY