Landmark victory over racism in jeopardy
The Supreme Court & affirmative action
By Julie Fry
The Supreme Court announced Dec. 2 that it will decide
whether the use of race as a factor in the admissions process
at the University of Michigan Law School is constitutional. For
over a decade now, students and activists have been fighting
back against right-wing forces who have attacked
affirmative-action programs nationwide. The court's decision
could eliminate affirmative action at all U.S. public colleges
and universities.
Roots of affirmative action
Affirmative-action programs are concessions won by the
tremendous strength of the civil-rights movement during the
1960s and 1970s. Students held mass demonstrations and
teach-ins to demand an end to the elitist, racist and sexist
admission policies of school administrations.
At the University of Michigan, the Black Action Movement led
a student strike that shut down the entire campus for almost a
month in 1970. At the time, Black students accounted for only 2
to 3 percent of enrolled students at U of M. One of BAM's
demands was to raise the enrollment rate of Black students to
at least 10 percent.
Movements like the one at U of M resulted in tremendous
gains for students of color, women and working-class youths
across the country. For the first time they gained access to
traditionally white, male and wealthy universities.
But these gains have come under attack by the ruling
class.
In most of the country, primary and secondary schools remain
just as segregated now. Schools that primarily serve students
of color receive, on average, far less per-pupil funding than
white schools. Students of color are much less likely to have
access to honors or advanced-placement classes, to participate
in music or art programs, or to have access to staffing,
learning materials, or technology that wealthier public schools
enjoy.
Wealth is one factor responsible for the unequal education
system. Racist policies such as "red lining" ensure that even
as people of color gain higher incomes, they are confined to
segregated neighborhoods with poorer schools. "Tracking" works
within primary and secondary schools to disproportionately push
people of color into remedial or vocational classes.
Two years ago, a study by Harvard's Civil Rights Project
found that African American students in predominately white
schools were almost 10 times more likely than white students to
be forced into remedial classes.
All these factors help create enormous obstacles to
receiving a good education.
The University of Michigan has never lived up to its 1970
promise of 10 percent Black student enrollment. Instead,
African American students compose only about 7.5 percent of U
of M's under grad uate enrollment. That is a significant gain
from the numbers in 1970, but still grossly out of proportion
with the state's 14-percent African American population of the
state. ("Disappointing Numbers," www.michigandaily. com, Nov.
18; www.census2000.gov)
African American students and faculty are also still
fighting for more tenured faculty of color, the creation of an
African and African American Studies department, and an end to
racist harassment on campus, including white students parading
in "blackface."
Behind attacks on affirmative action
The lawsuit against Michigan was initiated by the Center for
Individual Rights, a racist, right-wing think-tank based in
Washington, D.C. that is responsible for most of the recent
anti-affirmative-action litigation. It has brought similar
lawsuits against the University of Washington and University of
Texas. It also defended Proposition 209, the law in California
that banned affirmative action at the University of California.
(www.cir-usa.org)
At the University of Texas Law School, Black student
enrollment decreased by 90 percent the year after the CIR won
its racist lawsuit. (www.michigandaily.com, "Other
universities," Dec. 3)
Similar effects from Proposition 209 have been reported at
UCLA and UC-Berkeley. Further, the few African Americans who
have managed to persevere at these schools have reported a
dramatic increase in racist harassment. (www.michigandaily.com,
"UC becoming resegregated", Feb. 9, 2001)
Behind the CIR and the barrage of attacks on programs for
the poor and oppressed throughout the 1990s are wealthy
foundations and elites. They include the Bradley
Foundation--infamous for its role in dismantling welfare in
favor of the "workfare" system--and the Orin Foundation, which
along with Bradley pulled the strings in former New York Mayor
Rudolph Giuliani's campaign to eliminate the progressive open
admissions system at the City University of New York.
CIR also has the help of the most racist, reactionary
forces. In the Texas case, CIR was assisted by lawyer Theodore
Olson, now U.S. Solicitor General, who defended Ronald Reagan
during the Iran-Contra scandal, and Stacey Koon, the Los
Angeles cop who brutally beat Rodney King. (Diaz, Black Issue
in Higher Education, Dec. 25, 1997). In the Michigan case, CIR
used former State Sen. David Jaye to help it recruit
plaintiffs. Jaye, a rabidly racist politician, is known for his
failed attempts to reinstate the death penalty in Michigan and
to pass a state constitutional amendment banning affirmative
action. (Lansing State Journal, May 25, 2001)
Groups like the CIR try to explain away the deep disparities
in wealth and education in the United States through racist and
anti-poor rhetoric about "merit" and the "work ethic." They
dismiss the effects of hundreds of years of racism and
oppression. They argue that standardized tests like the SAT
measure how "qualified" someone is to go to college, even
though study after study has shown that the only thing these
tests measure accurately is how much money someone has to throw
into an SAT preparation class or a private tutor.
They viciously attack the programs that have given at least
a few of the poor and oppressed the opportunity to get some
sort of a decent education, while staying silent about the
"legacy" admissions that benefit the children of rich alumni
most of all. Underlying all these pretexts and lies is their
desire to reserve the best education in this country for more
affluent white students, to the detriment of the oppressed.
Implications of the recent decision
The upcoming decision in the University of Michigan case
will be the first time the high court has looked at this issue
since 1978. At that time, the Supreme Court dealt a huge blow
to affirmative action in the U.C. Regents vs. Bakke ruling. The
court attempted to undermine affirmative action's role as a
corrective to the cumulative effects of hundreds of years of
racism, using the false argument of "reverse
discrimination."
This time, many fear the court will eliminate affirmative
action in higher education altogether. In the lower courts,
expert witnesses testified in the Michigan case that the
elimination of affirmative action would result in a decrease in
student of color enrollment from the current rate of 14.5
percent to an abysmal 4 percent at the law school. Similar
effects are estimated for the undergraduate program. (Gratz v.
Bollinger, 6th Cir. 2002)
Some time in the spring, the Supreme Court will hear oral
arguments in the University of Michigan case. But the fate of
affirmative action, and of access to education in this country,
cannot be left to the will of the reactionary Supreme Court.
All progressive and anti-racist people should organize locally
and nationally to combat this attack.
Reprinted from the Dec. 19, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
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