The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to hear two cases about affirmative action policies at the University of Michigan Law School and undergraduate college.
The cases -- Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger -- are set to be tried within the next year and mark the first time in more than two decades that the Supreme Court has reviewed the controversial practice of accepting applicants based partially on their race.
The plaintiffs in the two cases are Barbara Grutter, who was denied acceptance to the Michigan law school in 1997, and Jennifer Gratz and Patrick Hamacher, both of whom were denied acceptance to the university's College of Literature, Science and the Arts.
Grutter claims that the university's decision regarding her acceptance was based in part on the fact that she is white. Gratz and Hamacher claim that admitting Hispanic or black applicants with equal or lesser academic records violates the constitutional guarantee of equal protection. Grutter's lawyers contend that Michigan admissions officers were using a quota system that is unconstitutional.
Meanwhile, officials at Michigan are confident that the Supreme Court will uphold affirmative action policies and remain adamant that their race-conscious admissions practices are justified.
"We stand at the threshold of a decision that will have a profound impact on our nation's higher education system and on our race relations broadly," Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman said in a statement released Monday.
Coleman also said that if the Supreme Court rules against the university, it will be encouraging resegregation among the nation's top universities and can also affect its ability to provide support to minority programs, such as financial aid.
Michigan General Counsel and Vice President Marvin Krislov echoed Coleman's support of the admissions policy.
"We are not surprised the Supreme Court chose to take our cases," he said in a statement Monday. "We are ready to defend our policies."
Penn Legal Studies Professor Kenneth Shropshire said the Supreme Court's decision to try the cases did not come as a surprise to him.
"I knew it was coming," Shropshire said. "Generally this is what happens when there are split decisions in the circuit courts."
Michigan Law School Dean Jeffrey Lehman said he fully supports the use of affirmative action policies in the admissions process.
He explained in a statement issued Monday that racially integrated campuses make students better prepared for the real world.
"To provide the highest quality legal education to our students, we have no choice but to employ affirmative action in admissions," he said.
The Supreme Court has not heard an affirmative action case involving higher education admissions policies since 1978 in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. The ruling in that case was split -- racial quotas were banned but the Court only vaguely discussed the issue of affirmative action in its decision.
"Apparently the Court is ready to address this issue" of affirmative action, Shropshire said.
Michigan officials said they believe that their admissions policy is aligned with the 1978 decision.
In the brief that Michigan's representatives submitted to the Court, the university claimed that its use of race in admissions "is moderate in scope, treats all applicants as individuals and does not employ quotas."
Grutter's lawyers argue that in past decisions, federal courts have issued contradictory opinions on the use of affirmative action in college admissions, and hope that the Supreme Court's upcoming decision will bring clarity to their stance.
But Shropshire said that ultimately the decision may not resolve the long-debated issue of affirmative action.
"You never know until the decision comes out whether they will address it head-on," he said.
