Despite the early hour, Asian Pacific American students turned out in large numbers to hear a welcome from President Bollinger and begin their three-day conference of workshops and fun. Friday morning's welcoming remarks by President Lee C. Bollinger and Royster Harper, dean of students, were heralded by a performance of Sal Pan, the Korean American drum troupe from Michigan State University. A carnival of games and fun in the Michigan Union rounded out the evening. A ceremony Sunday brought the three-day conference to a close. Bollinger said a challenge for students who live in a society insulated from the poverty, war and inhumane treatment in other parts of the world is to see beyond themselves and participate in the tremendous spirit of giving that he sees on campus.
Public service is one of the finest achievements.
A broader challenge is the one confronting affirmative action in higher education, he said, citing preliminary figures released April 1 that show a significant decline in enrollment of underrepresented minority students at the Berkeley and Los Angeles campuses of the University of California. They are the first classes since that California's Proposition 209 eliminated using race as a factor in college admissions. That is precisely why the University of Michigan is committed to aggressively defending its policy in the lawsuits filed by the Center for Individual Rights. Bollinger believes that the case of Brown vs. Board of Education was the beginning of the civil rights issue and that we are all indebted to that for the diversity we have been able to maintain. There are forces that would try to turn us back many decades and it is up to us as educational institutions to argue for a diverse student body.