Grutter, the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative and Schuette Forum

[jbagelboy]

Does this spell the end of URM impact at Michigan Law? The equal protection ban on AA has been in limbo since enactment in 2006, but today's decision upholds it as constitutional over vigorous dissent (let's pray no con law professor ever assigns an unedited 58 pg Sotomayor dissent). See http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5191458/.

Bottom line, for T14 candidates, what does this mean for diversity and applications to Michigan's (public) graduate schools/law schools next cycle? The text of the state law does not appear to restrict to undergraduate colleges.

ETA: this is not intended to incite a normative discussion on affirmative action, just the impact to law school admissions.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Didn't California ban the use of AA in admissions but schools find a way to get around it? (Uninformed question, but that was the impression I had.)

[cotiger]

Unless you go to a purely numbers-based system, it's tough to imagine a way to make AA go away so long as administrators value diversity.

[jbagelboy]

UCLA law and Boalt have managed to retain higher numbers of African American students than the admissions standards would suggest since that ban in 1996, although acceptance rates for minorities did go down from pre-ban levels by roughly 50%. The undergraduate UCs have not been able to maintain AA programs and its been a huge crisis for diversity at those institutions.

Michigan Law could implement similar evasive policies, but given the attention this has received they might be under more scrutiny; the bill seems to have been explicitly geared to counter/obviate the holding in Grutter that educational diversity was a compelling interest for UM.

Either way I would assume it will have some negative impact on URM admissions at Michigan, but as you said the results in CA were mixed...

[banjo]

Speculation: Is this the end of the LSAT at UM? There's an argument that using the test in admissions is effectively discriminatory. There's that Scalia/Thomas dissent in Grutter that specifically talks about the LSAT: "Similarly no modern law school can claim ignorance of the poor performance of blacks, relatively speaking, on the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT). Nevertheless, law schools continue to use the test and then attempt to “correct” for black underperformance by using racial discrimination in admissions so as to obtain their aesthetic student body."

[cotiger]

You don't have to make diversity an official aim to continue AA, though. Looking favorably on candidates who have "overcome obstacles" or something similar is both a current practice and a future avenue for AA.

The only way I can see AA being shut down is by mandating that all ethnic groups have similar LSAT/GPA medians or something like that. Without a numbers-driven approach, how would you even be able to claim that AA is still being practiced?

[cotiger]

Speculation: Is this the end of the LSAT at UM? There's an argument that using the test in admissions is effectively discriminatory. There's that Scalia/Thomas dissent in Grutter that specifically talks about the LSAT: "Similarly no modern law school can claim ignorance of the poor performance of blacks, relatively speaking, on the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT). Nevertheless, law schools continue to use the test and then attempt to “correct” for black underperformance by using racial discrimination in admissions so as to obtain their aesthetic student body."

That would certainly be an ironic outcome for the anti-AA crowd.

[banjo]

^Yeah. The use of the test will still be legal but the impact (without AA) may be so racially lopsided that UM is forced to change its admissions policy.

[vuthy]

You don't have to make diversity an official aim to continue AA, though. Looking favorably on candidates who have "overcome obstacles" or something similar is both a current practice and a future avenue for AA.

Like Souter said in Gratz, it's basically become a game of "hide the ball."

[Iroh]

Speculation: Is this the end of the LSAT at UM? There's an argument that using the test in admissions is effectively discriminatory. There's that Scalia/Thomas dissent in Grutter that specifically talks about the LSAT: "Similarly no modern law school can claim ignorance of the poor performance of blacks, relatively speaking, on the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT). Nevertheless, law schools continue to use the test and then attempt to “correct” for black underperformance by using racial discrimination in admissions so as to obtain their aesthetic student body."

I highly doubt it they're going to jettison the LSAT entirely. If anything they will probably just choose to devalue it, favoring GPA over LSAT, as Berkeley does. They could also place increased emphasis on softs, like leadership roles in social justice-oriented clubs, where minority students probably have a better chance to shine than they do on the LSAT.

The LSAT serves a very useful purpose, even aside from the USNWR rankings. To dismiss it entirely would effectively bring us back to the dark ages where students who go to Ivy League-caliber schools have an unfair advantage over those who attend state schools--like Michigan.

[Big Dog]

If anything they will probably just choose to devalue it, favoring GPA over LSAT, as Berkeley does.

UC undergrad colleges also devalue standardized tests (SAT/ACT) relative to HS GPA....

The undergraduate UCs have not been able to maintain AA programs and its been a huge crisis for diversity at those institutions.

Just African Americans are really low....(the current admissions pool of Frosh has a plurality of Hispanics).

[Big Dog]

If anything they will probably just choose to devalue it, favoring GPA over LSAT, as Berkeley does.

UC undergrad colleges also devalue standardized tests (SAT/ACT) relative to HS GPA....

The undergraduate UCs have not been able to maintain AA programs and its been a huge crisis for diversity at those institutions.

African Americans are really low, but the current admissions pool of Frosh has a plurality of Hispanics systemwide.

[Vincent]

Didn't California ban the use of AA in admissions but schools find a way to get around it? (Uninformed question, but that was the impression I had.)

If you look at the application sent to Berkeley Law (and I think UCLA), I believe all stuff related to race is redacted. Berkeley's way to compensate is to have applicants fill out an optional socioeconomic questionnaire.

[Iroh]

It's also easy to mention it in a personal/diversity statement, and it would be pretty obvious depending on the clubs you participate in. If you put down that you were vice president of the Black Student Union as a bullet-point on your resume, it's not like the adcomms are going to erase it and then slip themselves a roofie so their decision isn't tainted.

Some URMs on TLS have said that their high school counselors told them to specifically mention their race in their personal statements so they would increase their chances at admission to the UCs. This was not my experience as a Californian, but I have no reason to believe it isn't true.

[downinDtown]

Didn't California ban the use of AA in admissions but schools find a way to get around it? (Uninformed question, but that was the impression I had.)

If you look at the application sent to Berkeley Law (and I think UCLA), I believe all stuff related to race is redacted. Berkeley's way to compensate is to have applicants fill out an optional socioeconomic questionnaire.

Some other states beside CA also have affirmative action bans. Interesting charts/overview here: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013 ... -bans.html

Basically states have focused more on socioeconomic factors and increasing recruiting efforts in lower-income areas, among other things.

While the application can redact items related to race, in reality nothing prevents schools from identifying (or guessing) candidates' ethnicity or nationality based on their name, school location, extracurricular involvement in certain groups, etc. and then informally placing value on those other indicators in their effort to promote diversity in a non-explicit affirmative-action context. I don't know if there is (or will be) any auditing of the admissions policies in other states, besides what questions are permitted on the application itself, so this de facto affirmative action has a chance to continue relatively unabated, but with more effort by adcoms.

[First Offense]

UCLA law and Boalt have managed to retain higher numbers of African American students than the admissions standards would suggest since that ban in 1996, although acceptance rates for minorities did go down from pre-ban levels by roughly 50%. The undergraduate UCs have not been able to maintain AA programs and its been a huge crisis for diversity at those institutions.

Michigan Law could implement similar evasive policies, but given the attention this has received they might be under more scrutiny; the bill seems to have been explicitly geared to counter/obviate the holding in Grutter that educational diversity was a compelling interest for UM.

Either way I would assume it will have some negative impact on URM admissions at Michigan, but as you said the results in CA were mixed...

A way around it? Take socio-economic diversity into account. Statistically that should lead to a larger number of minorities.