The University of Michigan, Michigan State, and Wayne State have petitioned the U.S. District Court in Detroit to allow them to delay ending their discriminatory preferences “until the universities have completed their admissions and financial-aid decisions for next fall.”
Their motion
notes that the institutions “have already made thousands of decisions” regarding applications for admission and financial aid in the 2007-8 academic year. It argues that complying with Proposal 2 on December 23 would force them “to apply different policies to applicants within the same cycle,” and, because the implications of the amendment are still being hashed out, could result in them applying new admissions standards that could later be determined to be wrong. It also argues that forcing the universities to abandon their admissions policies in midcycle would deprive them of their First Amendment-based right to admit the class that best meets their academic goals.
It seems to me that part of a class and some financial awards made in a non-discriminatory manner is better than none at all, but at least the request to be allowed to finish what they started for next fall is reasonable in a way that their raising the First Amendment right to discriminate is not.
For representative press comment on this request, see here, here, and here.
UPDATE [13 December]
The author of a letter to the Michigan Daily hits the nail (or the president of the University of Michigan; sometimes its difficult to tell them apart) on the head:
By outlawing affirmative action policies, Proposal 2 strives to eliminate double standards. The University and University President Mary Sue Coleman are absolutely correct that evaluating individuals applying for spots in the same incoming class under separate sets of criteria is unfair.
What they have failed to do is see past their rhetoric of diversity to the fact that they have been applying a double standard all along with their affirmative action policies.
I always thought that rights belong to the individual, and that the government’s duty is to secure those rights. As public universities they are government actors. Their assertion of a First Amendment right is no different than the Department of Agriculture asserting that it has a First Amendment right. It’s a silly claim on its face.
While I can’t argue with the fact that implementing Prop 2 in mid-application-season would be disruptive, I have to laugh about the claim that “because the implications of the amendment are still being hashed out, could result in them applying new admissions standards that could later be determined to be wrong.” How do they make statements like this with a straight face? There are no “implications” to be “hashed.” There is just a very simple rule: stop using race as a factor. How exactly can one do that “wrong”? They’re just stalling.