An article in the National Law Journal, by Tresa Baldas, on the aftermath of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative’s victory is so biased and misinformed that it easily could have appeared in one of the mainstream Michigan newspapers.
It’s subtitle asserts a “Concern that U. of M. will become an all-white school for the privileged.” Worse, the thrust of the article implies that that concern is valid.
Do those who are so concerned really fear that no minorities will qualify to attend the UM law school if they must meet the same standards as everyone else? Why would they be afraid that ending racial and ethnic preferences would leave only “privileged” students? Are there no “unprivileged” whites, Asians, or other unpreferred minorities?
Ms. Baldas quotes George Washington, the attorney who filed the recent lawsuit on behalf of BAMN challenging MCRI after its victory, claiming that MCRI “is going to resegregate the universities. There’s no question about it.”
Really? “No question”? I look forward to seeing Mr. Washington’s evidence establishing the prior existence of segregation at the University of Michigan and other Michigan public universities.
With fact-checkers and editors at the National Law Journal presumably away from their desks, Ms. Baldas also claimed that
On Nov. 7, Michigan became the fifth state to adopt a prohibition on affirmative action in college admissions, joining California, Florida, Texas and Washington.
Texas, however, never did really “adopt a prohibition on affirmative action.” It was forced by the Fifth Circuit in the Hopwood case to abandon racial preferences. In response it adopted a plan guaranteeing admission to the University of Texas to the top 10% of all high school graduates (see discussion here, here, and here), but after the Supremes in effect overruled Hopwood in Grutter I believe the University, but not Texas A&M, has re-instituted preferences.
