Affirmative Action: Stare Decisis

The Supreme Court issued their long-awaited rulings on affirmative action yesterday, and they pretty much kept it in place, although they decided that adopting a point system simply for being Hispanic or nonwhite isn't the best way to go about it.

The Court upheld the University of Michigan's affirmative action program for its law school, but decided that the university's point system that awarded scores to black, Hispanic, and Asian undergraduate applicants on the basis of race or ethnicity was unconstitutional. As a supporter of affirmative action, I'm comfortable with the twin rulings, especially with the law school decision. As Justice Sandra Day O'Connor noted, law schools have a special need to diversify, seeing as how the law affects so many people of different backgrounds, and how so many public office holders are lawyers themselves. Amen to that! The legal community has been dominated by a white, upper-middle class establishment for too long, and too many people are at the mercy of this elite group. A more diverse legal community should bring a greater balance in the pursuit of justice. And we shouldn't worry about the decline of legal standards by admitting to law schools people who don't have adequate test scores; aside from the obvious fact that the legal profession doesn't have any standards (HA HA!), letting an applicant into law school via affirmative action does not mean this applicant will make it through three years of law school. Affirmative action simply means giving disadvantaged people a chance. Many of them succeed far greater than their inner-city or poor rural education would have indicated, while some won't make it that far. Same with well-educated applicants. Heck, I got into computer school on the basis of high test scores, but I couldn't cut it once I started and had to drop out!

As for the striking down of the undergraduate point system, I hope the University of Michigan comes up with a better affirmative action program in its place, but quite frankly, I have no sympathy for Jennifer Grotz, the plantiff in this suit. She still attended the University of Michigan at the Dearborn campus, not the main Ann Arbor campus like she wanted to, and she's long since graduated - so what's the problem? Also, Jennifer Grotz is one of those privileged suburban white kids who distinguished herself as a cheerleader, a student government member - for those of you familiar with the comic strip "Funky Winkerbean," she was a Cindy Summers, a popular uber-student who excelled in everything she did. And she's upset because some inner-city kid from Detroit, who never had the chance to live up to his or her abilities in high school because he or she was dodging gang wars and drug dealers while going to a dilapidated, underfunded high school built during the Harding administration, got into UM's Ann Arbor campus ahead of her? Come on!

As for Barbara Grutter, the woman who lost her suit against UM's law school. . . . She didn't get to go there, so why doesn't she get over it? She's fifty years old, and she's only discovering now that you can't always get things the way you want them to? Hey, I wanted to write record reviews for a music magazine when I got out of college! Either that, or get into radio. But I didn't! That's life!

Affirmative action . . . mended, not ended.