Opinion ID: 201292
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Gratz and Grutter

Text: Gratz involved a challenge to the University of Michigan's undergraduate admissions program. The University automatically assigned twenty points -- one-fifth of the 100 points necessary to guarantee admission -- to an applicant from an underrepresented racial or ethnic minority group. Gratz, 539 U.S. at 255. This twenty-point bonus effectively made race/ethnicity determinative for minimally qualified minority applicants. Id. at 272. Grutter involved a challenge to the University of Michigan -29- Law School's admissions policy. The Law School took race into account as one of several variables in an individual's application. Grutter, 539 U.S. at 340. It assigned no mechanical score based on an applicant's race; instead, it considered race only as one of several possible ways in which an applicant could enrich the diversity of the student body. Id. at 315-16. The Supreme Court struck down the undergraduate admissions plan in Gratz while upholding the law school admissions policy in Grutter. In arriving at these decisions, the Court followed a four-part narrow tailoring inquiry. First, a raceconscious program cannot institutionalize a quota system or otherwise insulate one category of applicants from competition with another solely because of race. Id.; Gratz, 539 U.S. at 334. Second, the government must consider whether there are any workable, race-neutral alternatives. Grutter, 539 U.S. at 339. Third, the plan must not unduly harm members of any racial group. Id. at 341. Fourth, the use of racial distinctions must be limited in time. Id. at 342. Much of this inquiry is relevant here despite significant differences between the competitive admissions plans at issue in Gratz and Grutter and the Lynn Plan, which is non-competitive and governs only student transfers, not initial assignments. The requirement that the court consider race-neutral alternatives addresses whether the Plan is necessary; if there were a race- -30- neutral way to achieve the benefits of diversity and reduced racial isolation, the use of race would be unnecessary and therefore not narrowly tailored. The requirements that a race-conscious policy not unduly harm members of any racial group and that it be limited in time minimize the scope of the Plan, ensuring that its use of race is no broader than necessary. The weight of these considerations may vary somewhat from the Grutter setting to ours, but they remain applicable and we will return to them shortly. The first Grutter criterion relating to competition, however, is less useful to our narrow tailoring inquiry. The University of Michigan admissions policies were designed to assemble a student body that is diverse in ways broader than race. Grutter, 539 U.S. at 340. Individualized assessments, in which race was only one consideration among many, were the most narrowly tailored way to achieve such diversity. The mechanical use of race, by contrast, would preclude an admissions committee from considering students' background, experiences, and characteristics to assess [their] individual 'potential contribution to diversity.' Gratz, 539 U.S. at 274 (quoting Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265, 317 (1978) (opinion of Powell, J.)). Unlike the Gratz and Grutter policies, the Lynn Plan is designed to achieve racial diversity rather than viewpoint -31- diversity.9 The only relevant criterion, then, is a student's race; individualized consideration beyond that is irrelevant to the compelling interest. Cf. Brewer, 212 F.3d at 752 (If reducing racial isolation is -- standing alone -- a constitutionally permissible goal, . . . then there is no more effective means of achieving that goal than to base decisions on race.) The concerns motivating the individualized consideration requirement in a competitive, race-preferential admissions context that focuses on diversity along a number of axes (e.g., the Gratz and Grutter policies) are simply not present in a non-competitive K-12 transfer policy aimed at racial diversity. Because transfers 9 As we have already discussed, see supra Part III.B., the Lynn Plan's focus on racial diversity rather than viewpoint diversity is the result of contextual differences between higher education, where the emphasis is on the exchange of ideas, and primary education, where the emphasis is on fostering interracial cooperation. The district court explained this point in distinguishing Grutter, which was then pending before the Supreme Court: In contrast [to Grutter], the critical mass sought by the Lynn Plan is different, because Lynn's goal is not viewpoint diversity. As I have said, at the elementary, middle, and high school level, the goal of teaching socialization is at least as important as the subject matter of instruction. The value of a diverse classroom setting at these ages does not inhere in the range of perspectives and experience that students can offer in discussions; rather, diversity is valuable because it enables students to learn racial tolerance by building cross-racial relationships. In this context a meaningful presence of racial minorities -- and of whites at minority-dominated schools -- is crucial not only to reducing feelings of tokenism, but also to disarming stereotypes that students in the classroom majority might harbor about students of other races. Comfort IV, 283 F. Supp. 2d at 381 n.90. -32- under the Lynn Plan are not tied to merit, the Plan's use of race does not risk imposing stigmatic harm by fueling the stereotype that certain groups are unable to achieve success without special protection. Bakke, 438 U.S. at 298 (opinion of Powell, J.) (raising the possibility of stigmatic harm in the affirmative action context). There is also little chance that the decisive use of race in a plan concerned strictly with racial diversity creates the unwarranted presumption that race is a proxy for viewpoint. See Gratz, 539 U.S. at 271 (recognizing this as a risk when members of a group are favored based on a presumption that persons think in a manner associated with their race). Indeed, the Plan strives for exactly the opposite result -- that is, to preempt racial stereotypes through intergroup contact. The plaintiffs emphasize that the Supreme Court has also criticized the mechanical use of race on the ground that it may breed cross-racial tension. As the Court recently explained in considering a prison policy of segregating prison inmates by race, racial classifications threaten to . . . incite racial hostility. Indeed, by insisting that inmates be housed only with other inmates of the same race, it is possible that prison officials will breed further hostility among prisoners and reinforce racial and ethnic divisions. By perpetuating the notion that race matters most, racial segregation of inmates may exacerbate the very patterns of [violence that it is] said to counteract. Johnson, 125 S. Ct. at 1147 (internal quotation marks, citations, and emphasis omitted). These concerns, however, are not applicable to the Lynn Plan, which takes race into account to foster -33- intergroup contact rather than to segregate. As the Johnson Court acknowledged, racial integration . . . tends to diffuse racial tensions and thus diminish interracial violence. Id. (citing the opinion of former corrections officials and a study finding that the rate of violence between inmates segregated by race . . . surpassed the rate among those racially integrated). The Lynn Plan validates this conclusion: by reducing racial isolation and increasing intergroup contact, it has ameliorated racial and ethnic tension and bred interracial tolerance. Comfort, 283 F. Supp. 2d at 376. We therefore see no reason to impose a blanket prohibition on the use of race as a decisive factor in a student transfer plan to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits of racial diversity. If a non-competitive, voluntary student transfer plan is otherwise narrowly tailored, individualized consideration of each student is unnecessary.10