In the Supreme Court of the United States, Jennifer Gratz and Patrick Hamacher, Petitioners, versus Lee Bollinger, James J. Duderstadt, and the Board of Regents of the University of Michigan, Respondents on Writ of Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Brief for Respondents.

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60

Access to Education; Affirmative Action; Civil Rights; College Admission; Court Litigation; Diversity (Student); Ethnicity; Higher Education; Racial Factors; Selective Admission

Bakke v Regents of University of California; Gratz et al v Bollinger et al; Grutter et al v Bollinger et al

This legal document addresses whether the Court should reaffirm its decision in Regents of University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978), holding that the educational benefits which flow from a diverse student body to an institution of higher education, its students, and the public it serves are sufficiently compelling to permit the school to consider race and/or ethnicity as one of many factors in making admissions decisions through a "properly devised" admissions program. It discusses whether the admissions program of the University of Michigan's College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LS&A) is properly devised. It asserts that the University of Michigan may consider race and ethnicity as factors in admissions to obtain the educational benefits of diversity, noting that: settled principles of Stare Decisis require continued adherence to Bakke's core holding, and institutions of higher learning have a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits of diversity that justifies the consideration of race and ethnicity. It claims that the LS&A's admissions program is narrowly tailored to achieve the compelling interest of obtaining the educational benefits of diversity, explaining that the university cannot achieve meaningful diversity without considering race and ethnicity as factors in admissions. (SM)

2003

ED475068