Grutter vs. Bollinger: Reverse Discrimination

Barbara Grutter, a white student filed suit against the University of Michigan Law school after she was rejected in 1996. She claimed that she was discriminated against based on her race, which is in violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. She claimed that she was rejected because the University used race as a major factor for admissions, giving minorities a greater chance to be admitted even if their credentials were the same as a white applicant. The defendant was Lee Bollinger who at the time was the President of the university.

The University’s policy was to make “special efforts” to increase the numbers of African American, Native American and Hispanic students who without some preference, “might not be represented in the student body is meaningful numbers.” (www.aamc.org/diversity/amicusbrief.pdf) The District court first ruled that the school’s ethnic-based admissions program violated the fourteenth amendment and title VI and that there was “mathematically irrefutable proof that race is indeed an enormously important factor” (www.aamc.org/diversity/amicusbrief.pdf) in the university’s quest to meet it’s goal of minority admissions.

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that Michigan’s admissions policy is constitutional and that there was nothing wrong with implementing policies to ensure diversity.

http://www.npr.org/news/specials/michigan/