Court Strikes down Michigan's Ban on Race-Conscious College Admissions

The author reports on the ruling of a divided appellate court that held that the state law unconstitutionally made it harder for minorities to seek preferences than for other groups. The court struck down a voter-passed ban on the use of race-conscious admissions by Michigan's public colleges, holding that the measure had unconstitutionally put racial-minority members at a distinct legal disadvantage in seeking from public colleges the same preferential treatment that other categories of students enjoy. The ruling, by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, creates a clear division among the federal courts over the issues raised, because a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit this year upheld a nearly identical California ban in a ruling that the full Ninth Circuit declined to reconsider. The existence of such a split between the federal circuit courts greatly increases the likelihood that the U.S. Supreme Court will feel compelled to weigh in on such bans on affirmative-action preferences, which have been adopted by voters in Michigan and five other states: Arizona, California, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Washington.