The U of M case
Pete Waldmeier of the Detroit News offers up a commentary on the University of Michigan numerical rating system, and likens it to the old "point system" using which real estate agents kept Italians and other undesirables out of the Grosse Pointes in the 1960s:
Blonds were fine; "swarthy" was a no-no. And forget black, Hispanic and Native American. When the points were totaled, you were in or out. Buyers didn't even know they were being graded.
All that ended long ago, of course, because it was illegal as well as immoral. Yet in two cases coming before the U.S. Supreme Court for argument this spring, U. of M. administrators and other activists are insisting that for purposes of diversity, all college applicants are not created equal and some should be granted an automatic advantage based on race, ethnic origin and disadvantaged social or economic background. What goes around sometimes comes around backwards, I guess.
-- U-M admissions policy smells a lot like quotas - Detroit News
And Thomas Bray offers an intriguing tidbit: The original impetus for the lawsuit came, not from a Republican right-winger, but from Carl Cohen, a decidedly liberal sort -- a former ACLU chapter chairman and a frequent writer for The Nation in previous years. He notes:
Cohen says he blew the whistle on the University of Michigan's blatantly discriminatory admissions policies precisely because they offended his liberal principles -- in particular, the constitutional principle that every individual deserves equal treatment before the law.
In an interview, Cohen described his early efforts to obtain copies of the documents detailing the policies, the University's initial stonewalling tactics -- "no such documents exist" -- and the fact that, when he eventually got the documents he was looking for, "It was shocking, smoking-gun type of stuff." This is a fascinating background story.
-- U-M case not just right-wing affair - Detroit News
9:05:50 AM 
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