Though they are unlikely to have an immediate impact locally, two decisions handed down Monday, June 23, by the United States Supreme Court are already spurring renewed debate about Washington State’s voter-mandated policy requiring race-blind public school and university admissions.
For undergraduate admissions, the University of Michigan policy of automatically awarding 20 points out of a possible 150 to minority applicants was found by the Supreme Court to be “mechanical” and “predetermined” and was barred as a disguised quota system. By contrast, University of Michigan Law School’s looser system of individualized assessment of applications with an eye to achieving a “critical mass” of minority enrollment was found valid. Both decisions, however, upheld the core principle of affirmative action–that the state has a “compelling interest” in working toward ensuring racially diverse institutions of higher learning.
Within hours of the decisions, the University of Washington School of Law issued a release calling for our state to “refine” its laws by essentially overriding limits imposed by the 1998 passage of Initiative 200. The initiative, which won the support of almost 59 percent of voters, eliminated racial preferences in Washington State in public employment and contracting, as well as public school and university admissions, prompting a substantial decrease in minority enrollment at the law school.
Supporters of I-200, however, such as conservative radio talk-show host John Carlson, said any moves to loosen the strictures of I-200 would prompt a fight. “If the legislature wants to use the decision to overturn I-200, we would simply re-run the initiative, only this time extend it to cover the private sector,” Carlson warned.
With respect to the UW’s undergraduate program, the bottom-line impact of I-200 has not been as substantial as first feared by affirmative action advocates. In the immediate wake of I-200, minority enrollment dropped precipitously, but has since recovered to pre-I-200 levels, as admissions officers have found ways of expanding the pool of qualified minority applicants without resorting to direct racial preferences.
Michael Madden, the UW’s outside counsel, says the Supreme Court decision will not alter undergraduate admissions policy. The university “has been trying to find other means to achieve diversity, and that won’t change,” he said, though he added that in the wake of I-200 efforts to boost minority enrollment had been “a difficult and somewhat tenuous process.”
Kollin Min, a former member of the executive committee for the No on I-200 campaign, expressed relief that even a conservative Supreme Court saw the value of maintaining affirmative action, albeit in a constricted form, and said he believes its findings will prompt “greater levels of conversation” about I-200’s impact and that he “hopes people will be willing to take the next step” in reexamining I-200. Beyond admissions policies, the initiative has devastated minority contractors and severely curtailed minority hiring in public-sector jobs, Min said.
The Seattle School District, which has been fighting some of I-200’s limits in the courts, is not sure yet what impact the Supreme Court’s rulings might have on its efforts. The opinions are currently under review by the district’s outside counsel, spokesperson Lynn Steinberg said Monday evening.
Seattle University’s law school, which as a private institution is not bound by I-200, currently uses a method “almost exactly” the same as that of University of Michigan’s law school, which has ensured a diverse student body, dean Rudolph Hasl said. Race is “one factor, along with a lot of other factors” in determining who is admitted to the school, which has led to about one-third of school students being people of color, Hasl added.
As a practical matter, any move toward implementing the individualized assessment model at large public universities could well cause a host of new headaches, cautioned former SU law school dean and current professor Jim Bond. Speaking generally about the impact of the Supreme Court decision, Bond said that the sheer volume of applications fielded by such universities would be “difficult to process individually” and attempts to do so would likely lead to the encroachment of subjectivity and inconsistency into the vetting process. This could conceivably lead to a further spate of lawsuits from applicants who had been denied admission, Bond said.
