Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action and the Failed Attempt to Square a Circle
Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action arises out of a constitutional challenge to the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, aka, Proposal 2. Proposal 2 was a referendum passed by the voters of Michigan in 2006 by a 58% to 42% margin. It amended the Michigan Constitution to ban affirmative action preferences by the state entities. The amendment states that government educational institutions shall “not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contacting.” Also, “[t]he state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.”
The amendment was a reaction to the Supreme Court’s decisions on the constitutionality of affirmative action preferences in Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. University of Michigan in 2003. These opinions banned state universities from granting automatic bonus points to members of under-represented minority groups (Gratz), but allowed them to take race and ethnicity into account to achieve “diversity” for educational purposes (Grutter). Because Grutter allowed, but did not require, state universities to use racial and ethnic admissions preferences, opponents of such preferences decided to pursue a state constitutional amendment banning them.
