Affirmative Action Policies Gain Washington Boosters
Higher education groups, lawmakers show support for the University of Michigan in friend-of-the-court brief
By Charles Dervarics
Higher education organizations, including those representing Black colleges, have filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the University of Michigan’s affirmative action program that is now before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Associations representing a broad cross-section of higher education “demonstrate their belief that racial and ethnic student diversity advances higher education,” says the brief endorsed by the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education, the American Council on Education, the United Negro College Fund and other groups.
“Diversity is basic to higher education’s main purposes,” the brief states — to help students grasp academic and citizenship skills and allow them to function in a global economy. “Although not the only kind of student diversity colleges and universities seek, racial and ethnic diversity is necessary if there is to be genuine diversity,” the brief states.
