----Press Release

CALIFORNIA MINORITY BUSINESSES, BLACK LAWYERS,
LAW PROFESSORS SUPPORT
U. OF MICHIGAN ADMISSIONS PROGRAM

ATTORNEYS FILE AMICI BRIEF IN U.S. SUPREME COURT

SAN FRANCISCO (February 18, 2003) -- In one of the most important civil rights cases since the landmark Brown v. Board of Education, attorneys and law professors from the Equal Justice Society have filed a friends-of-the-court brief in the United States Supreme Court supporting the admissions program at the University of Michigan School of Law. The amici curiae brief was filed today (February 18, 2003) on behalf of the Coalition for Economic Equity, an association of minority businesses in California, the Santa Clara University School of Law Center for Social Justice and Public Service, the California Association of Black Lawyers, the Charles Houston Bar Association and the Justice Collective. The amici are represented by Professor Eric K. Yamamoto of the University of Hawai’i Law School, Equal Justice Society Project Director Susan K. Serrano, and Eva Paterson, Executive Director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights.

The brief supports the admissions policies of the University of Michigan Law School, which is under attack by white applicants who claim that considering race as one factor among many in admissions decisions is unlawful.

“Their arguments simply fail in history, contemporary social context and good conscience,” explained Professor Yamamoto. “Although the petitioners claim that they desire a ‘color-blind’ admissions policy, they are actually advocating a policy that would perpetuate stark inequality and deepen social divisions.

“Our brief shows that there is a difference between a governmental policy that perpetuates existing group advantage on the basis of race and one – like the one Michigan uses – that addresses the adverse effects of long-standing racial exclusion,” Yamamoto added.

“The petitioners distort the very idea of equality,” added Serrano. “Their so-called color-blind program would promote, rather than end, exclusion of minority group members.”

Serrano noted the experiences of California and Texas, where race-sensitive programs have been banned, offer stark evidence that ending race-as-a-factor admissions at selective law schools resegregates those institutions despite other efforts to assure diversity. In the year 2000, for example (and the two previous years), the percentage of African Americans in the entering class of the University of Texas School of Law has been lower than in the fall of 1950, the first year the law school admitted African Americans.

The brief asks the Court to uphold the Law School’s admissions policy. The case (Grutter v Bollinger, and a companion case concerning undergraduate admissions, Gratz v. Bollinger) will be argued in the U. S. Supreme Court on April 1 and a written opinion is expected by June 2003.

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Press Contacts:
Susan K. Serrano (Equal Justice Society), 415/288-8700
Eric K. Yamamoto (University of Hawai’i Law School), 808/956-6548