By Maryanne GeorgeKnight-Ridder Newspapers
DETROIT–In a downtown courtroom Thursday, lawyers will clash.Principles will be on trial; and a possibly historic legal odysseywill begin.
By the time the case ends — quite possibly in the U.S. SupremeCourt — a lawsuit against the University of Michigan could determinewhether the nation’s public colleges can rely on affirmative actionto give minority students a leg up in the admissions process.
U.S. District Judge Patrick Duggan will hear arguments Thursday onwhether to decide the case — filed by two white students against theuniversity’s undergraduate admissions policies — without a trial.Duggan is expected to rule on the motions in a few weeks. If heorders a trial, one could begin in early December.
While other lawsuits have challenged the use of affirmative actionin college admissions, the UM case is unique in several ways.
It marks the first time a university has been subject to twolawsuits challenging its undergraduate and law school admissionspolicies simultaneously. The law school trial is set to begin inJanuary.
The case also represents the first time a group of minoritystudents has successfully petitioned to intervene as equal parties indefense of suit involving admissions policies.
All three parties — the plaintiffs, UM and the group of minoritystudents — will present arguments and call witnesses. That means theplaintiffs have to simultaneously grapple in court with two separateopponents — the university and the group of students — making verydifferent defenses of UM’s affirmative action policies.
The lawsuit was filed in October 1997 on behalf of Jennifer Gratz,23, of Southgate, Mich., and Patrick Hamacher, 21, of Flint, Mich.,who claim they were denied admission to the university in 1995 and1997, respectively, in favor of less-qualified minority students.Gratz and Hamacher were hand-picked as plaintiffs by the Center forIndividual Rights, a Washington-based law firm that has crusadedagainst using affirmative action in admissions. The case has beencertified as a class action.
Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering, another law firm based inWashington, is responsible for defending the University of Michigan,UM President Lee Bollinger, former President James Duderstadt and theUM Board of Regents. The law firm is known for litigating civilrights cases.
The intervenors, called the Citizens for Affirmative Action’sPreservation, or CAAP, is a coalition of minority students and civilrights groups.
The coalition includes the National Association for theAdvancement of Colored People Legal Defense and Educational Fund, theAmerican Civil Liberties Union and the Mexican American Legal Defenseand Educational Fund.
The case’s triangular nature gives UM the luxury of presenting anovel defense.
The minority intervenors will take the traditional approach –that past and present discrimination at UM justifies admissionspolicies that consider race as a factor.
The university will focus on the results of affirmative action –a diverse student body.
UM lawyers say this will be the first time a university has goneto such great lengths to prove that diversity actually improveslearning.
The detailed defense of diversity, the presence of the intervenorsand the fact that the university faces a second affirmative actionlawsuit creates the potential to take both cases all the way to theU.S. Supreme Court, observers say.
“This is an important case. They are not arguing abstractions thistime,” said Susan Low Bloch, a professor at Georgetown Law Center inWashington, and expert in affirmative action cases. Part of theuniversity’s strategy has been to show that there is a groundswell ofsupport for the value of diversity. Over the past three years, UMsupporters, including former U.S. President Gerald Ford and more than20 Fortune 500 companies, have written articles or filed supportivebriefs on behalf of UM.
