Dec. 13, 2000

The University of Michigan used a 150-point scale to rank applicant, with 100 points needed to ensure admission, however the University gave ethnic groups an automatic 20-points on this scale. Jennifer Gratz and Patrick Hamacher, both Caucasian residents of Michigan, applied for admission to the University of Michigan's College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (one in fall '95 and the other in fall '97) and both were denied admission to the university. Their class-action lawsuit alleged "violations and threatened violations of the rights of the plaintiffs and the class they represent to equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment... and for racial discrimination."
"In Gratz v. Bollinger, a federal judge ruled that the use of race as a factor in admissions at the University of Michigan was constitutional. The gist of the university's argument was as follows: just as preference is granted to children of alumni, scholarship athletes, and others groups for reasons deemed beneficial to the university, so too does the affirmative action program serve 'a compelling interest' by providing educational benefits derived from a diverse student body" (Brunner).

March 27, 2001

Grutter v. Bollinger, a case like the University of Michigan undergraduate lawsuit, involved a different judge drawing an conflicting conclusion, ruling the law school's policy invalid that that "intellectual diversity bears no obvious or necessary relationship to racial diversity." But on May 14, 2002, the decision was upturned on appeal, ruling that the admissions procedure was actually constitutional.

June 23, 2003

In the most significant affirmative action decision since the Bakke case, the Supreme Court maintains the University of Michigan Law School's policy, ruling that race can be one of many factors considered by colleges when choosing their students because it entends "a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body." The Supreme Court ruled that the more mechanical approach of the University of Michigan's undergraduate admissions program, which uses a point system that rates students and awards additional points to minorities, had to be fixed. The undergraduate program did not provide the "individualized consideration" of applicants that was considered necessary on the Supreme Court’s past ruling on affirmative action.