|
Just a reminder that the challengers have not stopped coming so the proponent should not stop, either.
washingtonpost.com
U-Mich. Rulings Spur Strategic Scramble
Affirmative Action's Backers and Foes Ponder Response to High Court's Decision
By Michael A. Fletcher and Lee Hockstader
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, June 25, 2003; Page A09
Emboldened by Monday's Supreme Court decisions upholding race-conscious college
admissions, state legislators and education activists on both sides of the
debate are scrambling for a position in the legal landscape created by the
rulings.
As supporters looked for ways to expand affirmative action's reach, opponents
examined the feasibility of promoting ballot initiatives to outlaw affirmative
action in states across the country. They also said they will file new lawsuits
challenging affirmative action programs that they feel go beyond the limits the
Supreme Court set.
In California, legislators are considering ways to repeal or narrow the reach of
Proposition 209, the ballot initiative that outlawed state-run affirmative
action programs, while in Texas, higher education leaders have announced plans
to examine reviving a race-conscious admissions plan struck down by a federal
appeals court in 1996.
Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles), California Assembly majority whip, said he
supported a return to considering race as part of the admissions process. He
expects to raise the issue at the next meeting of the Latino Caucus in a few
weeks.
"Given the Supreme Court ruling, we have to make California law consistent with
that ruling," Nunez said. He acknowledged that a repeal would be no easy feat.
It would require a two-thirds vote in the state legislature and the governor's
signature before going before California's voters.
In Texas, officials at the state's flagship campus, the University of Texas at
Austin, said they could reinstate race-conscious admissions as soon as next
year. But even if the university returns to considering race in college
admissions, it seems unlikely that the state legislature will scrap the
"race-neutral" admission policy it enacted for public universities after
race-conscious admissions were struck down.
"This creates an opportunity to tinker with the top 10 percent rule," said state
Sen. Rodney Ellis, a Houston Democrat. "It creates an atmosphere to have a
discussion."
Under the plan, students in the top 10 percent of the graduating class at every
high school in the state are guaranteed admission to the state university of
their choice. The idea was to promote racial diversity on campus without using
explicit minority preferences.
Civil rights leaders and other critics have said the plan fosters racial
diversity in public universities only because of the segregation that is
prevalent at high schools across the state. Also, they say, the plan does
nothing to foster racial diversity at the state's graduate and professional
schools, where black and Latino enrollment has dipped in the absence of
race-conscious admissions.
Still, the 10 percent rule has helped black and Hispanic students gain admission
to public universities -- and has done at least as much to assist poor whites at
rural schools. That has made the plan a national model cited by officials
including President Bush, while it has created a political coalition that may
favor maintaining the plan in conjunction with a race-conscious affirmative
action policy.
"The top 10 percent rule was a remedy for [scrapping affirmative action] and an
imperfect one at that," said state Rep. Garnet Coleman, a Houston Democrat.
"However, it was egalitarian . . . It doesn't just help blacks and browns."
In Washington, civil rights groups were huddling with lawyers trying to develop
strategies to reach out to corporations and universities in hopes of persuading
them to strengthen their affirmative action programs.
Meanwhile, opponents were mapping strategies to limit affirmative action.
Ward Connerly, chairman of the Sacramento-based American Civil Rights Coalition,
who led referendum campaigns that ended race-conscious affirmative action in
California and Washington state, said his group will begin work within two weeks
to determine whether it can force a similar ballot initiative in Michigan.
"The pieces are all in place, and there would be no state more visible than
Michigan," Connerly said in a telephone interview. "We should have somebody on
the ground there within the next two weeks."
Many affirmative action opponents said they will have to rely on such
grass-roots efforts because of the politics that swirls around affirmative
action. Although many Americans dislike racial preferences, they also embrace
the idea of racial diversity. Through the years, that ambivalence has thwarted a
string of federal efforts to end affirmative action.
"I don't think there is any hope in terms of Congress doing anything to limit
affirmative action," said Linda Chavez, president of the Center for Equal
Opportunity, which is among a coalition of private groups working to end
race-conscious programs nationally. "The White House would be apoplectic if
Republicans in Congress decided to raise the issue."
Chavez said her organization had compiled a list of dozens of colleges and
universities that it believes go too far in considering race in admissions. She
said the group will ask the Department of Education to investigate the schools.
New lawsuits are also an option, she said.
Jack F. Kemp, the former Republican congressman who is now a director of Empower
America, a Washington research organization, called the efforts to find new ways
to oppose affirmative action in the wake of the court's ruling shortsighted.
"While I agree that ultimately a colorblind society should be our goal, we
certainly are not there yet. Blacks were removed from the mainstream economy,
denied access to education, job opportunities and access to capital and
ownership," he said. "Thus, African Americans have long been denied their full
measure of justice under the law, and while great progress has been made, we
have a long way to go."
Correspondent Kimberly Edds contributed to this report from Los Angeles.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
|