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Michigan Rulings Welcomed by Blacks in Legal Community

By Chris Wallace
Black College Wire

Eleanor Konzman, District Chronicles Student leaders from across the nation came to the Supreme Court April 1 to support affirmative action.

Two of three African Americans prominent in the legal community contacted immediately after Monday's much-anticipated Supreme Court decisions on affirmative action welcomed the court's rulings that universities can give an edge to minority applicants in admissions, but that race cannot be the determining factor.

A third, Percy Luney Jr., dean of law at Florida A&M University, was not as pleased. "It's a complex decision," said Luney. "I don't view this as recognizing affirmative action. The court is going in two different directions with this."

The justices overturned, 6-3, the point system used in admissions by the University of Michigan's undergraduate programs. But the system used by the university's law school, which gives race less prominence in the admissions process, was upheld, 5-4.

"It appears that the Supreme Court has upheld the Bakke� case," said Malcolm S. Robinson, president of the National Bar Association, an African American organization that says it represents a network of more than 20,000 lawyers, judges, educators and law students.

"There need to be strong affirmative action plans to achieve diversity. There will never be real diversity unless you have strong affirmative action programs, and there's no equal opportunity unless there's real diversity."

In the 1978 Bakke v. California decision, Justice Lewis F. Powell wrote that it was not a violation for a state university to use an applicant's race as a factor in admissions.

"It's important that African-American applicants be given the opportunity to compete," said McKen Carrington, interim dean at Texas-Southern University Thurgood Marshall School of Law. "Simply excluding people on a prognosis is a handicap on what students can do. The decision is a good one for America, and I think minorities will be encouraged to apply."

Monday's rulings apparently mean that race-conscious policies at universities will likely remain the same. The rulings affect tax-supported institutions.

Chris Wallace is a student at a North Carolina A&T State University.

Posted June 24, 2003