January 2007
Michigan voters on Tuesday approved a ban on affirmative action at the state’s
public colleges and in government contracting. The vote came despite opposition
to the ban from most academic and business leaders in the state — and the
history in which the University of Michigan played a key role in preserving the
right of colleges to consider race as a factor in admissions.
Defenders of affirmative action had been encouraged in the campaign’s closing
days by polls suggesting growing skepticism for the ban. But in the end, the ban
won support from more than 58 percent of voters, according to unofficial
results. Michigan thus followed a pattern in which some voters appear reluctant
to tell pollsters of their opposition to affirmative action.
A
CNN exit poll of Michigan voters suggested that the ban passed because of
support from men. Sixty percent of men, but only 47 percent of women said that
they backed the ban. By educational status, support for the ban was strongest
among those who were college graduates, and opposition was strongest among those
with postgraduate education. Among white voters, CNN found that 59 percent
backed the ban, while only 14 percent of black voters did so.
The
impact of the ban — known as the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative — is expected
to be greatest at the University of Michigan, which has the most competitive
admissions in the state. It is unclear how Michigan will respond to the change,
which would take effect in the middle of an admissions cycle.
Mary Sue Coleman, president of the university issued the following statement
Tuesday night — before final results were in: “We defended affirmative action
all the way to the Supreme Court because diversity is essential to our mission
as educators. We must keep the doors of opportunity open to all. Regardless of
what happens with Proposal 2, the University of Michigan will remain fully and
completely committed to diversity. I am determined to do whatever it takes to
sustain our excellence by recruiting and retaining a diverse community of
students, faculty and staff.” Coleman plans to meet with students today to
discuss the vote.
Donn M. Fresard, editor in chief of The Michigan Daily, which opposed the
ban, said he didn’t expect major student unrest over the vote. “You are not
going to see rioting on the Diag,” he said. “The average students isn’t overly
upset about this, and you’d be surprised how many students support it.
Especially among white students, support was pretty high.”
The
Michigan Civil Rights Initiative was the brainchild of Ward Connerly, who as a
regent of the University of California led that system and then the state to bar
affirmative action, with statewide action coming in 1996 vote. A similar vote
two years later banned affirmative action in Washington State, but efforts by
affirmative action foes then shifted largely to the courts, leading to the
landmark 2003 Supreme Court decisions in two cases involving the
University of Michigan.
Those decisions — one about the system used by Michigan to admit undergraduates
and one about the system used by its law school — effectively said that colleges
could continue to use affirmative action, but couldn’t have separate systems in
which extra points were awarded across the board specifically for race and
ethnicity. Many critics of affirmative action had high hopes that the Michigan
cases would be used by the Supreme Court to roll back its 1978 ruling in the
Bakke case, which upheld the right of colleges to consider race in admissions.
When Bakke largely survived, Connerly and others shifted back to the
referendum approach, with a focus on Michigan.
The
effort in Michigan was controversial throughout the process. Defenders of
affirmative action said that those who gathered petitions on behalf of the
measure deceived citizens, leading many to sign the petitions without realizing
what they were supporting. When Michigan courts said that the petitions were
valid, the stage was set for the campaign that ended on Tuesday.
In
that campaign, critics of affirmative action consistently talked about
admissions — in black and white terms — at the University of Michigan. Defenders
of affirmative action stressed the potential impact of the measure on the
education of female students in schools and colleges, many of which have created
special programs for them, especially in math and science. The emphasis on such
programs was seen in the last week as eroding support for a ban — particularly
among female voters.
Inside Higher Ed, November 8, 2006.
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