What Happens When a Constitutional Amendment Squashes Diversity?

My home state of Michigan recently voted to approve a proposal (“Proposal 2”), which would ban the use of information related to race and gender when making admissions decisions in the state’s universities. As a graduate student at the University of Michigan, this decision has hit my school particularly hard, as UM has been a very outspoken proponent of affirmative action. The approval of Proposal 2 in Michigan (and other similar proposals around the nation) shouldn’t negate the quest for diversity on campus. They’ll just have to be a bit more creative when it comes to “how.” However, it might be an quandary as to how to do it without violating the voters’ mandate.

How to Reconcile Voter’s Wishes With Diversity?

As mentioned the The Oakland Press today:

“[University of Michigan President] Coleman has been excoriated lately for her proposal to form a task force to explore how the university can “maintain and enhance” diversity there in the wake of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative’s adoption by voters Nov. 7.
Coleman has not said she would violate the language of Proposal 2, which takes effect this month. She has said she would like the university to maintain diversity where possible, but how has not yet been determined.
In fact, the Diversity Blueprints task force will brainstorm how to maintain diversity on campus, Coleman has said, within the new ramifications of Proposal 2. She has not said she would spend taxpayers’ dollars to combat the effects of the proposal, and if the task force is a group of volunteers meeting on its own time, she presumably will not. She has indicated that the university may need to seek clarification from courts about Proposal 2’s effect on the school’s operations.”

President Coleman will be one of the first to address the question of how to maintain a commitment to enrolling a representative slice of Michigan, while not explicitly taking race or gender into account. But, the question remains whether it is correct for the University of Michigan to attempt to circumvent the “spirit” of Proposal 2 by not explicitly violating “its language.” One of the issues here is that the town of Ann Arbor (where the University of Michigan is located) is fundamentally different in political views and demographics than the rest of Michigan. So while the university town’s populace may support Coleman’s decision, the University of Michigan is supported by taxpayer dollars from the whole state.

Taking the Battle to Court
The next step here is going to be a lawsuit. The University of Michigan is fighting Proposal 2 in court, which President Coleman announced right after it was approved. The immediate concern seems to delay the implementation of the proposal, which would severly impact the University’s admissions decisions in the middle of the year. The radical affirmative action group BAMN (By Any Means Necessary) beat UM to the punch in court. They filed a lawsuit to try to block Proposal 2, but the potential outcome of such a lawsuit is uncertain. At best, they may expect a delay of the implementation until the end of the academic year. Another issue at hand is that the current Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, a newly elected Republican, has fought UM’s attempts to use affirmative action policies in the past. As any legal action brought by UM would automatically name the State of Michigan (represented by Cox) as a defendant, it is unlikely he would concede to help UM.

The Collapse of Minority Enrollment
Other schools who’s admissions policies have been banned from using affirmative action have had devastating results, as noted by President Coleman.

“She [Coleman] said the University of Michigan cannot allow itself to experience the same fate as the University of California at Berkley, where minority enrollment collapsed after California voters banned affirmative action programs 10 years ago.”

Perhaps the value of affirmative action will only be recognized after minority enrollment has plummeted, however hopefully it won’t come to that.

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