MICHIGAN, USA — Following the US Supreme Court’s landmark ruling, effectively overturning affirmative action in a 6-3 decision Thursday, Michigan’s largest educational institutions suggested little would change in a state that moved to ban such policies more than a decade earlier.
Adopted in 2006, Proposal 2, which altered the state constitution, passed with overwhelming popular support.
The University of Michigan, reacting via a statement published to its website Thursday lamented the majority opinion:
“The University of Michigan remains steadfast in its commitment to fostering a diverse educational environment for our students and scholars, which is essential to our core mission of academic excellence. Today as university leaders, we recommit ourselves to this value.
Although the U-M is not directly affected by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to significantly narrow how race can be considered in admissions policies, we are deeply disheartened by the court’s ruling.
We remain firmly convinced that racial diversity is one of the many important components of a broadly diverse student body and an intellectually and culturally rich campus community. We believe racial diversity benefits the exchange and development of ideas by increasing students’ variety of perspectives, promoting cross-racial understanding and dispelling racial stereotypes. It helps prepare students to be leaders in a global marketplace and increasingly multicultural society. This belief is supported by a robust body of social science and educational research evidence.
During the Grutter (2003) case, U-M fought to consider race in a narrowly tailored manner that is attentive to the distinctive characteristics of individual applicants. Despite this victory, the state of Michigan passed in 2006 a constitutional amendment, Proposal 2, restricting public universities from considering race in admissions decisions. As a result, U-M has been operating for the past 17 years without considering race in its admissions policies.
The ruling will not change our values or efforts to become a more diverse university community.
U-M’s experiences with Proposal 2 can be instructive to other institutions of higher education. In continued efforts to cultivate and support a diverse student body, the university made significant commitments to practices, policies and procedures focused on race-neutral factors. These considerable efforts—buoyed by a large, campuswide diversity, equity, and inclusion strategic plan initiative — have resulted in noteworthy diversity strides in the representation of more socio-economically disadvantaged students and of some racial/ethnic communities.
At the same time, U-M’s experiences demonstrate what research has now shown clearly — that it is much more difficult to achieve racial diversity in the student body using only race-neutral methods than by including race in the admissions process in a narrowly-tailored manner. Proposal 2 had disproportionate, negative impacts on the most underrepresented communities; race-neutral policies have been much less successful in significantly increasing enrollments of Black and Native American students.
In the face of these challenges, we persist. We strive to create and support an educational community of diverse voices with a range of experiences. U-M’s experiences with Proposal 2 have taught us that achieving a more diverse student body in an unequal K-12 education system—racially, socioeconomically, among other areas—requires dedicating significant attention and effort to developing legally-permissible policies, practices, procedures and programs.
U-M’s recent diversity, equity and inclusion strategic plan, DEI 1.0, is an example of an institution-wide effort that resulted in significant progress, and successful and promising models for enhancing diversity. We also saw areas where we made less progress, and lessons learned about where we need to focus more. As we build on our progress and learning in our next strategic plan, DEI 2.0, we will continue to leverage innovative strategies with the greatest promise for achieving increased and abundant representation of the communities that make up our state, nation and global society.
We still wholeheartedly believe our dedication to academic excellence for the public good is inseparable from our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.
We know we have much more work to do to live up to our ideals of a broadly diverse learning community. The court’s decision makes this work more urgent than ever.
By doing this work, U-M has an opportunity once again to serve higher education more broadly, through sharing our lessons learned on how to achieve a more racially and otherwise diverse student body within the legal parameters newly announced by the court.
Once again, we have an opportunity to live up to our goals of being leaders and best.”
The statement was signed by University President Santa J. Ono and Provost Laurie K. McCauley.
Michigan State University also weighed-in Thursday. A spokesperson issued the following statement:
"We are carefully reviewing the ruling but believe the decision by the court will not change our approach to recruiting and retaining a broad and diverse student body and creating opportunities for all students. MSU values diversity and inclusion. All Spartans benefit from a more diverse student body, faculty and staff, which better prepares our students for post-graduation success and makes a more inclusive and welcoming society. This academic year, we had our largest and one of our most diverse classes of first-year students, and we are building on that progress alongside our campus partners.”
While Michigan’s public institutions won’t be affected in large part, its more than 40 private colleges and universities likely will feel the ruling’s effects.
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