Center for Equal Opportunity - University of Michigan Academic Programs Challenged by Center for Equal Opportunity

Home

Our Focus Areas

Affirmative Action

Education

Higher Education

University of Michigan Academic Programs Challenged by Center for Equal Opportunity

The Center for Equal Opportunity (CEO) has sent a letter to the University of Michigan’s general counsel questioning the legality of 12 race-and-ethnicity-exclusive programs offered by theuniversity. The programs include the Minority Research Summer Fellowship program, the LEAD program in Business, the Research Experience for Undergraduates and the Program in Scholarly Research for Urban Minority High School Students.

Click to View Letter

    The letter stated that the programs were in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and should be amended to provide opportunity to all students. In defending its use of racial and ethnic admission preferences in two cases involving racial preferences in admission that will be heard before the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, April 1st, U-M has stressed over and over again that race is “just one factor” that it considers. But, as CEO’s letter reveals, U-M has a dozen programs in which race is not just one factor, but an absolute requirement or disqualification, depending on whether an applicant is the “right” color or the “wrong” color.

    Linda Chavez, President of CEO stated, “Programs like the ones offered by U-M are enormously valuable and should be opened to all students based on their need and merit, not their race of ethnicity. There is no basis in the law to make race a prerequisite for participation in academic enrichment programs.”

    CEO and the American Civil Rights Institute (ACRI) of Sacramento, California asked the University to amend the programs by April 14th or the two groups said they would file a formal complaint with the U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights.

    As has been widely reported, CEO and ACRI have sent similar letters to nearly 30 colleges and universities over the last six weeks and six of them have agreed to drop their race and ethnicity prerequisites. These include Princeton, Iowa State, University of Delaware, and University of Virginia. Massachusetts Institute of Technology agreed to drop race as a consideration for their programs only after the two groups filed a formal complaint with OCR and the agency launched an investigation; Virginia Tech went as far as dropping race and ethnicity as a consideration for admissions, as well all enrichment programs.

    Chavez expressed hope that the Supreme Court will restrict the use of race in admissions. “These programs are and will remain illegal, no matter what the Supreme Court does this year. The fact that U-M has such programs shows how essential it is for the Court to set out a clear rule against racial discrimination in higher education. Schools can’t be trusted to “narrowly tailor” their discrimination. If the door is left ajar, they’ll drive a truck through it, just as they’ve been doing for the past 25 years.”

    Chavez continued, “Princeton, MIT, the Ford Foundation, and OCR have all indicated that such racially exclusive programs are almost impossible to defend. And even if they were defensible, why should a school want to exclude otherwise qualified and needy students, simply because of skin color?”

Examples of University of Michigan programs cited in the letter:

http://www.umich.edu/~oami/precollege/pe_medical_school.html

http://www.rackham.umich.edu/Fellowships/srop.htm l

http://erc.engin.umich.edu/Education/outreach/REU.htm

http://www.umich.edu/~oami/precollege/engineering_academy.html

http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/caas/outreach/education.html

http://www.finaid.umich.edu/otherschols.htm

http://www.si.umich.edu/diversity/financial-aid.htm