The World: The Years Best Stories

Court Curbs Affirmative Action
by Kate Waimey
4/6/01
While Obies were out enjoying their spring breaks, affirmative action was dealt yet another crippling blow.
On March 27, U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman ordered the University of Michigan Law School to end affirmative action and declared the school’s affirmative action policies unconstitutional. He explained his proclamation by stating that it was not in the interest of the state to ensure a diverse student body.
Affirmative action has been a mainstay in public institutions for more than 20 years as a way to counterbalance discrimination that minorities and women face in American society. Friedman’s ruling was based on his belief that “the effects of general, societal discrimination cannot constitutionally be remedied by race-conscious decision-making.” 
The policies have been politically charged since 1978 when the Supreme Court stated that both public and private schools could consider race as a factor in admissions in order to create diversity. It is widely believed that affirmative action will be brought to the court yet again. 
An appeal to the ruling has recently delayed the effect of the case so it does not apply to students scheduled to enter the law school this fall. In the Winter 1999 edition of Oberlin Alumni Magazine, Politics professor Ronald Kahn declared his beliefs on the policy’s future if an anti-affirmative action case made it to the Supreme Court. “I do not think the court would support the Hopwood decision and outlaw affirmative action,” he said. 
Friedman’s ruling only referred to the law school, whose use of affirmative action policies are less concrete than the point system taken into account in undergraduate admissions, in which minority students are automatically granted a certain number of points over white applicants. In a New York Times article dated March 28, Friedman stated that the law school admission policies were “indistinguishable from a straight quota system.”
The lawsuit was brought about by the Center for Individual Rights, a Washington-based group that worked on behalf of white applicants who had been rejected from the school.
Oberlin’s own affirmative action policies include extensive outreach programs to attract potential minority students to the school. This includes building contacts with the Urban League and Boys and Girls Clubs in many urban areas. In the fall, Oberlin also brings 90 minority students to Oberlin for a weekend. 
Although this is a hotly debated issue, many Oberlin students don’t feel well-informed enough to state their opinions on the subject. Those who do include college senior Brooks Daverman. On affirmative action, he said, “If you give people [the chance], equality will come after.”
“For the most part, they view the policies as positive,” Professor Kahn said, after discussing the issue with students. 
Other students believe there are inherent problems with the policy. “Affirmative action is necessary and important but flawed,” senior Isaac Natter said. Natter said the policy should not be based solely on color. He said, “The system should be overhauled and admission decisions should be based according to educational background,” such as the ranking of an applicant’s high school.
Dean of Students Peter Goldsmith discussed the significance of the final outcome of the lawsuit to Oberlin. “As a private institution, we have the latitude to establish our own admissions criteria,” he said, reaffirming the use of affirmative action in the school’s application process. “Oberlin regards it as appropriate to consider race/ethnicity as one among a host of factors in considering the admissibility of a given candidate.”
Adriana Dorado, the Latino community coordinator at the Multicultural Resource Center, said that the inequalities and discrimination that minorities undergo prior to entering Oberlin cannot be ignored. She said the controversial policy “helps those who did not have the opportunity to show their abilities,” before entering higher education.
Many people who are against affirmative action believe that it is reverse discrimination. In response, Dorado held that “affirmative action is just a way to get a foot in the door. Students must still work hard and prove themselves once accepted here.”
Even before affirmative action was an issue, Oberlin was welcoming minority students. In 1834, the year after the school was founded, Oberlin’s trustees resolved to admit black students by proclaiming, “Students shall be received into this institution irrespective of color.”
Many students have no idea what, if any, effect current and future affirmative action rulings will have on Oberlin’s admission policies. Kahn said that it would be sad if future court decisions “deny to our students, faculty, and staff the opportunity to be part of such a [diverse] community” that affirmative action helps to achieve.

During the ’90s, affirmative action policies decreased in popularity, as was made evident by the historically liberal state of California. In 1995, the Regents of the University of California stopped using race and sex as factors in their admissions. In 1996, residents of California then showed their support for the Regents by banning the use of affirmative action in state-sponsored programs.