Here.
NYTs: “College Diversity Nears Its Last Stand”
Here.
affirmative action
WaPo Coverage of College Affirmative Action Circuit Split
Here. Our previous coverage of the Sixth Circuit case is here.
College affirmative action back on Supreme Court’s horizon
By Robert Barnes, Published: July 31
When the Supreme Court in 2003 narrowly approved the consideration of race in public university admission decisions, it came with loads of restrictions and a sort of expiration date.“We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today,” Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote for the majority in Grutter v. Bollinger .
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One is from Texas, where a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit upheld a race-conscious admissions policy at the University of Texas at Austin. An attempt to have the entire circuit hear the case failed 9 to 7, and dissenters practically invited the Supreme Court to step in.
The other is from Michigan, where voters in 2006 passed a constitutional amendment to forbid the state’s public colleges and universities from granting “preferential treatment to any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin.”
A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit ruled 2 to 1 that the amendment violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment because it restructures the state’s political structure to the detriment of minorities.
Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette (R) on Friday asked the full circuit to review the decision, and said that the Supreme Court would be the next stop if he is unsuccessful with the circuit court.
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The Texas case, Fisher v. University of Texas , is the farthest along. Washington lawyer Bert W. Rein, who represents Abigail Fisher and Rachel Michalewicz, two students who said UT’s policy discriminated against them, has until mid-September to file a petition with the Supreme Court asking for review.
Sixth Circuit Panel Strikes Down Michigan’s Prop. 2 (Anti-Affirmative Action Statute)
Here is today’s opinion in Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action v. Regents of the University of Michigan.
An excerpt:
Proposal 2 is a successful voter-initiated amendment to the Michigan Constitution. In relevant part, it prohibits Michigan’s public colleges and universities from granting “preferential treatment to[] any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin.” Mich. Const. art. I, § 26. Our task is to determine whether Proposal 2 is constitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Fortunately, the slate is not blank. The Supreme Court has twice held that equal protection does not permit the kind of political restructuring that Proposal 2 effected. See Washington v. Seattle Sch. Dist. No. 1, 458 U.S. 457 (1982); Hunter v. Erickson, 393 U.S. 385 (1969). Applying Hunter and Seattle, we find that Proposal 2 unconstitutionally alters Michigan’s political structure by impermissibly burdening racial minorities. Accordingly, we REVERSE the district court’s grant of summary judgment for the Defendants-Appellees and order the court to enter summary judgment in favor of the Plaintiffs-Appellants.
Fourth Circuit Upholds North Carolina Statute Encouraging Black and Indian Public Contracting
Interesting case, quite possibly going to the Supreme Court for review (assuming the CA4 doesn’t reverse en banc) — H.B. Rowe Co. v. Tippett.
California AG Opinion Approving State Indian Preference Rules Despite State Ban on Affirmative Action
A very important opinion (h/t Indianz): Cal AG opinion.
In states like Michigan, tribal advocates have argued that state programs and laws designed to benefit Indian people are excluded from the application of the so-called Michigan “civil rights” amendment. This AG opinion approves of exactly the same argument.
Students Sue to Restore Affirmative Action in California
From How Appealing:
“Students sue to restore affirmative action at UC”: Josh Richman of The Oakland Tribune has this news update.
And The Associated Press reports that “Calif race-based admissions law challenged anew.”
Calif. AG Opines that Calif. Prop. 209 is Unconstitutional
From the SF Chron.:
The 1996 ballot measure that outlawed preferential treatment for women and minorities in government programs is unconstitutional because it prohibits all affirmative action and fosters the discrimination it was supposed to eliminate, Attorney General Jerry Brown told the state Supreme Court on Wednesday.
Brown’s opinion, which the court requested in considering a lawsuit that two white-owned contractors brought against San Francisco, could reopen the legal debate on Proposition 209. A federal appeals court upheld the measure in 1997, but the state’s high court has never ruled on its validity.
It could also become an issue in Brown’s expected campaign next year for the Democratic nomination for governor. Although Prop. 209 was approved by 54 percent of the voters, Brown’s position might help him in his party’s primary.
MSU Conference: Neocolonial Inscription and Performance of American Indian Identity in American Higher Education: Oct. 16-17
The conference will attempt to address and review issues of American Indian identity in higher education. Through this process, we hope to create and expand inter-community, inter-institutional and public dialogue on American Indians in higher education. The two day conference will examine key issues such as tribal sovereignty, faculty hiring, current university practices allowing self-identification, and explore who should represent American Indians in American Indian higher education programs and departments.
As a result of this conference, we hope to make MSU a better community, a more honest community, a place where diversity engenders not only inclusion in name, but where diversity includes, reflects and respects diverse ways of knowing and thinking, as well as diverse means for reception, delivery and acceptance of cultural competencies and production.
Keynote Speakers:
DCT Dismissal of Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action Claim
Here’s the opinion.
Erwin Chemerinsky on Michigan’s Prop 2
Erwin Chemerinsky’s talk about direct democracy and Prop 2 (with the Orwellian name “Civil Rights Initiative”) has been published in our own Michigan State Law Review. The talk is called “Challenging Direct Democracy.”
Here’s the introduction:
The Civil Rights Initiative in Michigan was adopted the day before this symposium on direct democracy was held at Michigan State University College of Law.
Let there be no doubt of its effects: it’s going to be a devastating event for individuals of color throughout Michigan. I can back this up by the experience of California, after a similar initiative, also championed by Ward Connerly, was passed there in 1996. Statistics are available about the effect on admissions at the University of California Law Schools in the five years immediately after the passage of what was called their Proposition 209. The percentage of minority students at state law schools, like UCLA and Boalt, is a fraction of what it was at comparable private schools like Stanford and U.S.C. The same effects have been seen in government contracting and employment.
Turtle Talk 
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