The (Un)Compelling Interest for Underrepresented Minority Students: Enhancing the Education of White Students Underexposed to Racial Diversity

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Grutter v. Bollinger in 2003, represented a refinement of constitutional compelling interests and permissible means of achieving those ends, where racial classifications are a factor in the context of higher education admissions. In Grutter, the Supreme Court held that the University of Michigan School of Law may consider an applicant’s race in its admissions decisions, to enroll a “critical mass of underrepresented minority students,” as a means “in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body.” A closer reading of the compelling interest in terms of the prospective educational rewards derived from exposure to racial diversity at the Law School, is to examine which students actually stand to gain from this enhanced educational benefit. In contrast, whether a student admitted with race as a factor gains the basic benefit of access to a college or graduate education, was not the concern of the Law School’s compelling interest. The thesis of this article is that the Grutter opinion upheld a constitutional admissions program of the University of Michigan School of Law, based on constitutionally suspect reasons. While ostensibly benefiting underrepresented racial minority groups by keeping the door ajar for their admission in critical masses, the opinion objectifies qualified applicants of color, whereby their individualized value as prospective students is held to be a measure of the degree to which each can contribute to the racial diversity of a school, and the corresponding educational benefits to fellow students, by virtue of his or her presence there. Key to this analysis is the dissection of the expert report of Patricia Gurin, into its methodology and findings underpinning the Law School's case for affirmative action. Also scrutinized is the testimony at trial of officials from the Law School, which reveals a distinctly standardized perspective of benefits of racial diversity to the Law School community.