Study Shows Biased Policies at University of Michigan

Discrimination against white and Asian applicants to the University of Michigan’s undergraduate, law, and medical schools is more severe than ever, a study released yesterday by the Center for Equal Opportunity says.The study, based on admissions data released by the university in response to a 2005 Freedom of Information request filed by CEO, shows that the grades and standardized test scores of black and Hispanic undergraduates in 2004 and 2005 were far lower than those of their white and Asian counterparts.The disparities persisted in the law and medical schools as well. According to the study, medical school applicants with MCAT scores of 41 and grade point averages of 3.6 in college science courses were admitted at rates of 74%, 43%, 12%, and 6% depending on whether the applicants were black, Hispanic, white, or Asian respectively.A spokesman for the university, Julie Peterson, called CEO’s study “flawed” and “shallow” because the study does not take into account all the information considered in the admission process such as students’ high school curricula, extracurricular activities, and teacher recommendations. “CEO attempts to reduce human beings to a couple of simplistic numbers,” Ms. Peterson said in a statement yesterday.The study could affect the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, which will be put to voters on November 7. If passed, the initiative will prohibit the state and local governments from granting preferences based on race, sex, or ethnicity in public employment, contracting, and education. Voters passed similar initiatives in California in 1996 and in Washington in 1998.CEO’s president, Roger Clegg, said that the data are shocking in light of the Supreme Court’s 2003 decision to strike down the admissions program used by the university’s main undergraduate school. The Court found that by automatically granting minority applicants 20 points out of the 100 needed for admission, the school failed to consider applicants on an individual basis and thereby violated the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.In a similar case against Michigan’s law school, the Court upheld a different admissions process, holding that race could be used as a “plus” if considered as one among many factors in admission. The cases are Gratz and Grutter v. Bollinger, after Lee Bollinger, who was law school dean and then president of the University of Michigan and is now president of Columbia University.“What is really remarkable is that the weight given to race by the University of Michigan in its undergraduate admissions is actually heavier now than under the system that was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2003,” the chairman of CEO, Linda Chavez, said yesterday in a statement. Mr. Clegg highlighted that today black students are 71 times more likely than white students to gain admission, whereas in 1999 they were 24 times more likely to be admitted.Some are arguing that CEO’s study demonstrates that the University of Michigan has not reformed itself in accordance with the Supreme Court’s mandate. “The proof is in these numbers,” said Terrence Pell, the president of the Center for Individual Rights, the law firm that represented the plaintiffs who sued the university. Mr. Pell said Michigan persists in enforcing a “completely segregated double standard.”Mr. Pell emphasized that the issue is not limited to the University of Michigan. “This ought to be an issue in every state that has a top-ranked state university because every one of those states is using double standards comparable to Michigan’s,” he said.

Study Shows Biased Policies at University of Michigan

Study Shows Biased Policies at University of Michigan

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