Our very involved president.

Last week, the Supreme Court began hearing the Fisher vs. University of Texas case.  This case, concerning affirmative action at the University of Texas, threatens to overturn the 2003 Grutter vs. Bollinger, that upheld the use of affirmative action in admissions at the University of Michigan Law School.

Abigail Fisher, a white woman, brought her arguments to the court after being denied admission to the University of Texas in 2008.  She believes she was rejected because of her race; she thinks her place in the student body was taken to create more diversity in the school.

The University of Texas has a unique admissions process.  In 1997 they passed Texas House Bill 588.  This bill instituted the “Top 10% Rule,” wherein the top 10% of every public school in Texas is granted admission to University of Texas.  It came to being following Hopwood v. Texas, which showed that the university was not using affirmative action properly and could not use race in admissions.

However, a change came with Grutter vs. Bollinger.  In PrezBo’s Freedom of Speech and Press class, he has been candidly discussing the history of affirmative action cases.  “I’m an advocate,” PrezBo said last Wednesday.  He believes that it supports diversity, which allows students to learn more from each other with differing perspectives.  Just as a school wants students from every state and other countries, it wants people with different backgrounds.  As he wrote in an article last week in the LA Times, “abandonment of the Grutter precedent would undermine the quality of education we can offer to all our students.”  In class, Bollinger cited California Prop 209, which banned the use of race in the admissions process.  After it was instituted, he explained, diversity at California schools crashed.  He goes into details about this in the LA Times article.

He did not want this happening in Michigan.  In fact, he did not want it happening across the nation; Bollinger understood that the ruling in Grutter vs. Bollinger would affect institutions everywhere.  He ensured that, bringing together other schools.  He then pulled corporations to defend the use of race in hiring.  Gerald Ford wrote an op-ed in the New York Times about his college experience with diversity.  Bollinger also turned to military academies for their support.

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Yesterday the African Students Association hosted their last political round table of the year on the topic of affirmative action. Panelists included University President Lee Bollinger, Professor Eric Foner, Professor Ted Shaw from the Law School, and Janine Jackson, program director at FAIR. Packed to capacity from 9 pm till 11 pm, Lerner C555 provided the venue for extended comments from this all-star panel of speakers. Foner Fan Alex Jones was there.

ASA Political Chair Kambi Gathesha, GS ’13, commenced the round table with a justificatory caveat explaining the purpose of the discussion. First and most obviously, Kambi cited the Supreme Court’s recent decision to hear Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, which questions Grutter v. Bollinger qua the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Kambi continued by citing the importance of broad historical and legal context while discussing affirmative action, as the issue can often be surrounded by nuanced and misunderstood language. He then pointed to the University’s announcement of a $30 million Faculty Diversity Initiative and resulting Bwog comments as evidence that this campus is want for a healthy examination of the principles underlying the policies that it practices. Kambi read aloud—”not for shock value”—a Bwog comment suggesting, “how bout instead of hiring based on the hue of one’s flesh, we emphasize *actual* competence and hire based on skill instead!” The shock was lost on me, but then I’ve never been a student of affirmative action. Who am I to question intellectual magnums like PrezBo and Foner?

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The Supreme Court has agreed to hear Fisher v. Texas, a case which, if ruled in favor of Fisher, would effectively undo PrezBo’s landmark 2003 affirmative action win. PrezBo scored that victory, Grutter v. Bollinger, coming east from UMich, where he was a big affirmative action supporter. The conclusion of the case affirmed public universities’ right to consider race as a factor in admissions.

Arguments won’t start until this October, so PrezBo’s trophy will hold its sheen for at least a few months longer. And when they do, the judicial leaning of the Court is such that affirmative action policy will likely remain intact. If, however, Fisher ends up taking a feather out of PrezBo’s cap, at least ‘Bo can still find solace in his hair and mansion and stuff.

Affirmative action has been one of the most hotly debated topics in higher education since the 1960s, as well as one of PrezBo’s most hotly pursued passions. Before taking the reins as Columbia’s president, ‘Bo.0 served as president of the University of Michigan, where his defense of affirmative action in Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger made international headlines. While his work with issues of diversity is pivotal, he still strives to maintain a balance between sustaining Columbia’s educational mission and continuing his role as a first amendment scholar and firebrand defender of wide-open free speech. He believes that the two go hand-in-hand, maintaining that the press and the university are the best places to support free speech.

Yesterday, he published an op-ed in The Washington Post (where he serves as a director) on college diversity being at risk—specifically pertaining to the Supreme Court’s pending decision as to whether or not they will hear Fisher v. The University of Texas at Austin. The case, in which a white student named Abigail Fisher asserted that she would have been admitted to the university if it weren’t for her race, has been ruled in the university’s favor by lower courts. In the piece, Prezbo stresses that the court hearing the case will be a blow to college diversity across the nation. He uses Columbia as an example for what a university should strive for in terms of diversity.

Consider Columbia, where our undergraduate student body has the highest percentage of low- and moderate-income students and the largest number of military veterans of our peer institutions, as well as the highest percentage of African American students among the nation’s top 30 universities. But our country cannot rely on private universities such as Columbia to realize these benefits. Far more students attend our great public universities, where a combination of declining state support and unfavorable ballot measures pose a serious risk to our model of higher education.