In 2003, two cases came before the Supreme Court that presented the stiffest challenge to affirmative action in decades. A White applicant to the University of Michigan’s law school sued the school, insisting that she had been rejected on the basis of her race. Similarly, two White applicants to the University of Michigan’s undergraduate school also sued, arguing the point system used by the university to assess applicants was unconstitutional.
Though the Supreme Court struck down the University of Michigan’s undergraduate point system in Gratz v. Bollinger, the court upheld in Grutter v. Bollinger the law school’s more informal “holistic” method of reviewing applications, which considers grades, test scores and recommendations, as well as race.
Using Grutter as a framework, universities have sought to strike a delicate balance between recruiting a diverse pool of applicants while adhering to the legal guidelines drawn by the High Court.
Since Grutter, universities have experimented with various methods of recruiting minority students, says Richard Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation. Some schools automatically admit students from the top 10 percent of their class, which tends to indirectly produce diverse students since most high schools are fairly segregated, he says. Another option is the “socio-economic model,” in which preference is given to low-income and working-class students of all races.
“This notion has no legal impediment to it,” Kahlenberg says. “It’s clear that even the most conservative justices like Scalia and Thomas are supportive of the socioeconomic model. And also it has a lot more political support than racial or ethnic-based affirmative action.”
Kahlenberg points out that a recent survey found that Americans oppose race-based affirmative action by a 2-1 margin but support income-based affirmative action by the same margin.
But talk of socioeconomic preferences masks the fact that racial preferences are still alive and well in college admissions, says Richard Sander, a professor at UCLA’s school of law who specializes in the legal issues surrounding affirmative action.
