Rallying at the Supreme Court for Affirmative Action
Published in
8/31/2004
The Teachers College rally contingent
By topic:
By faculty:
On April 1, 2003, nearly 40 TC students, staff and faculty members took
a bus to Washington, D.C., for a rally before the U.S. Supreme Court to
support affirmative action in higher education admissions. The rally
attracted tens of thousands of people from across the country, with
contingents from many universities, including Columbia (which had six
buses), Harvard, Howard, Rutgers, Boston College and the University of
Michigan, various civil rights organizations, numerous churches, and
several high school groups.
On the day of the rally, the Supreme
Court began hearing two cases challenging the admissions process at the
University of Michigan. With legal assistance from the Center for
Individual Rights (a conservative legal foundation), a group of white
students claimed that they were harmed by the university's affirmative
action policy, which takes race into consideration as one factor in
admissions decisions. Attorneys representing the students argued that
any consideration of race in admissions is unconstitutional.
The
rally participants strongly disagreed. They noted the U.S. Supreme
Court upheld affirmative action and the use of race as one factor
among many in admissions decisions in its 1978 Bakke decision.
Moreover, they pointed to evidence that affirmative action has secured
minorities and women more equitable access to selective colleges and
universities.
Janice Robinson and Adam Bad Wound of TC's Office
of Diversity and Community, students Nathan Walker and Erica
Frankenberg, and Professor Kevin Dougherty organized the trip. "The
challenges to affirmative action are attempts to undermine fundamental
access to full societal economic and educational participation by
minority and disadvantaged people," said Robinson, Special Counsel to
the President on Diversity and Community. "That's why it was imperative
that TC had a presence at this important civil rights march."
Two
months later, on June 23, 2003, the Supreme Court decided the case and
upheld the constitutionality of race-conscious admissions policies
designed to promote diversity in higher education.
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