Post by craiginsandiego on Nov 10, 2006 10:53:57 GMT -5
Coming to a state near you........ African American enrollment has dropped to 1980 rates since the same changes in California. HBCUs are looking better and better.
I just hope while they are removing preferences for race, color, ethnicity, national origin, and gender that they include:
children of alumni
children of boosters
admissions from company sponsored fellowships
basketball players
football players
track and field athletes
Michigan Voters Adopt Ban on Racial and Gender Preferences
By PETER SCHMIDT
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News Headlines From The Chronicle
Democrats gain control of U.S. House, but Senate remains in doubt
5 ways a Democratic U.S. House changes the playing field for higher education
Michigan voters adopt ban on racial and gender preferences
Spending limits are defeated in 3 states, but Missouri's stem-cell vote is close
Results of state referenda related to higher education
Last updated Wednesday, November 8, at 1:30 p.m., U.S. Eastern time
Michiganders voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to amend their state's Constitution to ban public colleges and other state agencies from operating affirmative-action programs that grant preferences based on race, color, ethnicity, national origin, or gender.
Unofficial elections results showed that the proposed constitutional amendment passed with about 58 percent of the vote, making Michigan the third state in the nation to approve such a ballot initiative in the last decade. Similar measures were adopted in California in 1996 and in Washington State in 1998.
The impact of the Michigan measure -- which appeared on the ballot as Proposal 2 and was known as the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative -- could stretch well beyond race- and ethnicity-conscious admissions policies. It is expected to also affect many recruitment, scholarship, or student-support programs geared toward helping minority students get into and through public colleges in the Great Lakes State.
The campaign on behalf of Proposal 2 prevailed despite having raised only a third as much money as the campaign against it as of last week. The initiative had little organized support beyond two groups that had formed to promote it, and was opposed by a long list of labor, business, religious, minority-advocacy, and education groups, most of which worked together through One United Michigan, an umbrella organization.
Heading up the group that got the measure on the ballot was Jennifer Gratz, who had been the chief plaintiff in Gratz v. Bollinger, a lawsuit that persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court to issue a 2003 decision striking down a point-based race-conscious admissions policy used by the chief undergraduate program at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor (The Chronicle, July 4, 2003). In an interview on Tuesday night, as the election results were being finalized, Ms. Gratz said that "people in Michigan stood up to the establishment, and the principle of equal treatment under the law prevailed today."
The University of Michigan's president, Mary Sue Coleman, issued a written statement saying that, regardless of the election's outcome, her institution would "remain fully and completely committed to diversity."
"We defended affirmative action all the way to the Supreme Court because diversity is essential to our mission as educators," Ms. Coleman said. "I am determined to do whatever it takes to sustain our excellence by recruiting and retaining a diverse community of students, faculty and staff."
One of the leaders of higher-education organizations that opposed Proposal 2, Darrell G. Kirch, who is president of the Association of American Medical Colleges, called its passage "a severe setback for Michigan's citizens and medical schools."
"Banning affirmative action," Dr. Kirch said, "will strip medical educators of an important tool to increase diversity among tomorrow's doctors."
Becky Timmons, a spokeswoman for the American Council on Education, called the measure's passage "a serious setback to the goal of equal educational opportunity."
"It will not level the playing field, as some who voted for it may believe," Ms. Timmons said. "Instead, it will effectively tie the hands of Michigan's public colleges in their attempts to encourage broader participation in higher education by women and minorities."
An exit poll of 3,000 voters conducted for The Detroit News found stark race- and gender-based divisions on how Michigan residents viewed the measure.
At least 55 percent of the men surveyed said they voted in favor of Proposal 2, while at least 58 percent of women said they had voted against it. (An additional 3 percent of the women and 1 percent of the men declined to say how they had voted.)
Broken down by race, the results of the exit poll showed that at least 56 percent of the white respondents voted in favor of Proposal 2, but at least 86 percent of black and 69 percent of Hispanic voters cast ballots against it. In terms of education level, the strongest opponents of the measure -- with more than 6 out of 10 voting against it -- were people at the extremes of the spectrum, who either had never earned a high-school diploma or had graduated from college and gone on to graduate or professional school. The strongest advocates of the measure were people whose educations had not progressed beyond earning a high-school diploma or getting some technical training.
Both the News's exit poll and another survey conducted by the Detroit Free Press had declared the outcome of the Proposal 2 vote too close to call, and some pre-election polls had actually found the measure to be behind. Surveys have been shown be notoriously unreliable in gauging how people will vote on matters related to race because many people are reluctant to give pollsters a candid answer.
Michigan is 81 percent white and 14 percent black, and ranks as one of the nation's most segregated states. Political analysts had predicted that Proposal 2 would pass easily if the voting fell strictly along racial lines.
Opponents of Proposal 2 had concluded that their best hope of defeating the measure was by producing a high turnout among black voters and trying to sway women against it. The chief organization campaigning against the measure, One United Michigan, had warned in campaign advertisements that passage of the measure could threaten programs that help battered women and programs that provide screening for breast and cervical cancer -- assertions that the measure's backers strongly denied. In the final weeks of the election, One United Michigan also ran a radio advertisement in which U.S. Sen. Barack Obama urged people to vote against the measure, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson had visited the state to campaign against it.
Among the higher-education groups that came out against the measure were several colleges' student governments, the Michigan affiliate of the American Association of University Professors, and a council made up of the state's university presidents. The Law School Admission Council had donated $250,000 to the campaign against it.
The biggest obstacle that Proposal 2's sponsors may have faced was simply getting the measure on the ballot in the face of resistance from a group called the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality by Any Means Necessary (and commonly referred to as BAMN). Lawyers for BAMN, who alleged in the courts and before state election officials that the campaign on behalf of Proposal 2 used fraudulent tactics in soliciting petition signatures to qualify it for the ballot, have vowed to go back to court to try to have the vote nullified and the enforcement of the measure blocked.
The campaign for the measure was advised by Ward Connerly, the prominent affirmative-action critic who helped lead the successful campaigns for similar ballot initiatives in California and Washington. Mr. Connerly said last month that the Proposal 2 campaign was so taxing on him that he has no plans to mount anything like it soon, but he has received calls from people in other states, including Illinois, Missouri, Massachusetts, and Oregon, who were interested in undertaking similar efforts.
Ms. Gratz's lawsuit had been one of two challenging race-conscious admissions policies at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. In a second lawsuit, involving Michigan's law school, the Supreme Court had held that race-conscious admissions policies serve a compelling government interest, given the educational benefits of diversity. Michigan's legal struggle helped preserve race-conscious admissions policies at colleges outside California and Washington, but, with Tuesday's vote, it appears that the university may no longer be able to enjoy the fruits of its own legal victory.
David W. Waymire, a spokesman for One United Michigan, said, "Today, sadly, Michigan voters were deceived by a fraudulent campaign that ignored the culture of inequity that faces our state."
"We live in a state," Mr. Waymire said, "where women earn 67 cents for every dollar earned by a man and in a state that is considered one of the most segregated in the country, and yet the people of Michigan have chosen to ignore those realities."
I just hope while they are removing preferences for race, color, ethnicity, national origin, and gender that they include:
children of alumni
children of boosters
admissions from company sponsored fellowships
basketball players
football players
track and field athletes
Michigan Voters Adopt Ban on Racial and Gender Preferences
By PETER SCHMIDT
advertisement
Article tools
Printer
friendly
article
Subscribe
Order
reprints
Discuss any Chronicle article in our forums
Three most recent discussions
Re: Can we do anything?
Today at 09:51:53 AM by econ_anon
Re: getting personal with a student
Today at 09:44:06 AM by econ_anon
Re: SC called my current boss. Meaning?
Today at 09:40:47 AM by larryc
News Headlines From The Chronicle
Democrats gain control of U.S. House, but Senate remains in doubt
5 ways a Democratic U.S. House changes the playing field for higher education
Michigan voters adopt ban on racial and gender preferences
Spending limits are defeated in 3 states, but Missouri's stem-cell vote is close
Results of state referenda related to higher education
Last updated Wednesday, November 8, at 1:30 p.m., U.S. Eastern time
Michiganders voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to amend their state's Constitution to ban public colleges and other state agencies from operating affirmative-action programs that grant preferences based on race, color, ethnicity, national origin, or gender.
Unofficial elections results showed that the proposed constitutional amendment passed with about 58 percent of the vote, making Michigan the third state in the nation to approve such a ballot initiative in the last decade. Similar measures were adopted in California in 1996 and in Washington State in 1998.
The impact of the Michigan measure -- which appeared on the ballot as Proposal 2 and was known as the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative -- could stretch well beyond race- and ethnicity-conscious admissions policies. It is expected to also affect many recruitment, scholarship, or student-support programs geared toward helping minority students get into and through public colleges in the Great Lakes State.
The campaign on behalf of Proposal 2 prevailed despite having raised only a third as much money as the campaign against it as of last week. The initiative had little organized support beyond two groups that had formed to promote it, and was opposed by a long list of labor, business, religious, minority-advocacy, and education groups, most of which worked together through One United Michigan, an umbrella organization.
Heading up the group that got the measure on the ballot was Jennifer Gratz, who had been the chief plaintiff in Gratz v. Bollinger, a lawsuit that persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court to issue a 2003 decision striking down a point-based race-conscious admissions policy used by the chief undergraduate program at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor (The Chronicle, July 4, 2003). In an interview on Tuesday night, as the election results were being finalized, Ms. Gratz said that "people in Michigan stood up to the establishment, and the principle of equal treatment under the law prevailed today."
The University of Michigan's president, Mary Sue Coleman, issued a written statement saying that, regardless of the election's outcome, her institution would "remain fully and completely committed to diversity."
"We defended affirmative action all the way to the Supreme Court because diversity is essential to our mission as educators," Ms. Coleman said. "I am determined to do whatever it takes to sustain our excellence by recruiting and retaining a diverse community of students, faculty and staff."
One of the leaders of higher-education organizations that opposed Proposal 2, Darrell G. Kirch, who is president of the Association of American Medical Colleges, called its passage "a severe setback for Michigan's citizens and medical schools."
"Banning affirmative action," Dr. Kirch said, "will strip medical educators of an important tool to increase diversity among tomorrow's doctors."
Becky Timmons, a spokeswoman for the American Council on Education, called the measure's passage "a serious setback to the goal of equal educational opportunity."
"It will not level the playing field, as some who voted for it may believe," Ms. Timmons said. "Instead, it will effectively tie the hands of Michigan's public colleges in their attempts to encourage broader participation in higher education by women and minorities."
An exit poll of 3,000 voters conducted for The Detroit News found stark race- and gender-based divisions on how Michigan residents viewed the measure.
At least 55 percent of the men surveyed said they voted in favor of Proposal 2, while at least 58 percent of women said they had voted against it. (An additional 3 percent of the women and 1 percent of the men declined to say how they had voted.)
Broken down by race, the results of the exit poll showed that at least 56 percent of the white respondents voted in favor of Proposal 2, but at least 86 percent of black and 69 percent of Hispanic voters cast ballots against it. In terms of education level, the strongest opponents of the measure -- with more than 6 out of 10 voting against it -- were people at the extremes of the spectrum, who either had never earned a high-school diploma or had graduated from college and gone on to graduate or professional school. The strongest advocates of the measure were people whose educations had not progressed beyond earning a high-school diploma or getting some technical training.
Both the News's exit poll and another survey conducted by the Detroit Free Press had declared the outcome of the Proposal 2 vote too close to call, and some pre-election polls had actually found the measure to be behind. Surveys have been shown be notoriously unreliable in gauging how people will vote on matters related to race because many people are reluctant to give pollsters a candid answer.
Michigan is 81 percent white and 14 percent black, and ranks as one of the nation's most segregated states. Political analysts had predicted that Proposal 2 would pass easily if the voting fell strictly along racial lines.
Opponents of Proposal 2 had concluded that their best hope of defeating the measure was by producing a high turnout among black voters and trying to sway women against it. The chief organization campaigning against the measure, One United Michigan, had warned in campaign advertisements that passage of the measure could threaten programs that help battered women and programs that provide screening for breast and cervical cancer -- assertions that the measure's backers strongly denied. In the final weeks of the election, One United Michigan also ran a radio advertisement in which U.S. Sen. Barack Obama urged people to vote against the measure, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson had visited the state to campaign against it.
Among the higher-education groups that came out against the measure were several colleges' student governments, the Michigan affiliate of the American Association of University Professors, and a council made up of the state's university presidents. The Law School Admission Council had donated $250,000 to the campaign against it.
The biggest obstacle that Proposal 2's sponsors may have faced was simply getting the measure on the ballot in the face of resistance from a group called the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality by Any Means Necessary (and commonly referred to as BAMN). Lawyers for BAMN, who alleged in the courts and before state election officials that the campaign on behalf of Proposal 2 used fraudulent tactics in soliciting petition signatures to qualify it for the ballot, have vowed to go back to court to try to have the vote nullified and the enforcement of the measure blocked.
The campaign for the measure was advised by Ward Connerly, the prominent affirmative-action critic who helped lead the successful campaigns for similar ballot initiatives in California and Washington. Mr. Connerly said last month that the Proposal 2 campaign was so taxing on him that he has no plans to mount anything like it soon, but he has received calls from people in other states, including Illinois, Missouri, Massachusetts, and Oregon, who were interested in undertaking similar efforts.
Ms. Gratz's lawsuit had been one of two challenging race-conscious admissions policies at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. In a second lawsuit, involving Michigan's law school, the Supreme Court had held that race-conscious admissions policies serve a compelling government interest, given the educational benefits of diversity. Michigan's legal struggle helped preserve race-conscious admissions policies at colleges outside California and Washington, but, with Tuesday's vote, it appears that the university may no longer be able to enjoy the fruits of its own legal victory.
David W. Waymire, a spokesman for One United Michigan, said, "Today, sadly, Michigan voters were deceived by a fraudulent campaign that ignored the culture of inequity that faces our state."
"We live in a state," Mr. Waymire said, "where women earn 67 cents for every dollar earned by a man and in a state that is considered one of the most segregated in the country, and yet the people of Michigan have chosen to ignore those realities."
