Opinion ID: 777482
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Differentiating a Critical Mass, a Plus and a Quota

Text: 273 As I have just explained, the preference accorded minorities in the Law School's admissions scheme is different in magnitude from the plus or the tip that Justice Powell thought might be permissible under certain conditions. The Law School's racial preference, however, suffers from deeper problems — as it appears calibrated to admit a certain percentage of under-represented minority students. The Law School concedes that the preference is designed to admit a critical mass of under-represented minority students. Of course, the term critical mass is intentionally vague. When pressed, the Law School will explain that a critical mass is that number of students necessary to enable minority students [to] contribute to classroom dialogue and not feel isolated. Majority Op. at 746. Pressed further, the Law School will not say that any particular number of minority students constitutes a critical mass. It seems obvious to me, however, that the Law School has an opinion as to what that number is and attempts to achieve it. 27 274 The majority summarily dispenses with this problem, approvingly quoting the comforting reassurances of Dean Lehman (We do not have a portion of the class that is set aside for a critical mass) without noting that in fact a critical mass is always obtained. Majority Op. at 746. And comforting those words must be, as a contrary response would have produced what appears to be the only manner in which a racial preference in admissions could be unconstitutional for the majority: a quota system. Yet Harvard in the 1930's did not have to say that exactly 87 percent of the seats were set aside for Gentiles — it just had to apply an admissions system based on character that achieved roughly the same result. 28 275 The results of the Law School's system to produce a critical mass  reassure us that the Law School really seeks to enroll a critical number of minority students. Between 1995 and 1998, the last four years for which we have data, the Law School consistently enrolled a number of under-represented minorities constituting 13.5 to 13.7 percent of the class enrolled. The absolute numbers are just as consistent: 47 of 341 in 1998, 46 of 339 in 1997, 44 of 319 in 1996, and 46 of 340 in 1995. University of Michigan Law School's Report to the ABA, JA at 643. The statistics demonstrate that the Law School was more successful at enrolling a precise number of under-represented minorities than a precise number of total students. 29 It seems clear to me, at least, that the critical mass the Law School seeks to achieve is only vague and flexible for outsiders not looking at its enrollment statistics. 30 The Law School's critical mass of designated minorities is 44-47 per class, or around 13.5%. 276 The majority and the Law School stress that minority enrollment numbers have varied, indicating that the Law School does not maintain a fixed target for minority admissions. The fact that there has been any variation (.2% over four years), trivial though it may be, in the percentage of students admitted who are minorities satisfies the majority that the Law School does not maintain a quota. After all, the majority instructs us, variation produces a range, and a range will always have a minimum, that might look like a number below which the Law School will not go. Majority Op. at 16. Such is the nature of a range, the majority says, almost suggesting that it was foolish to be concerned about the question. Ibid. 277 I am not concerned just with the bottom of the range, but also its top. The range, as I have demonstrated, is remarkably tight. Admittedly, it is not identical from year to year — but the lack of identity does not seem enough to demonstrate that the Law School does not have an exceedingly precise numerical target in mind when admitting its students. The fact that a quota is a range rather than one specific number certainly does not insulate a program from constitutional scrutiny. In Bakke, had UC Davis said We're going to reserve, oh, about 14 to 18 seats, maybe give or take a few, for minority students — and then, indeed hit that range every year, I doubt that anyone can seriously believe that the outcome of that case would have been different. 278 The majority's reliance on such slight variations also ignores the imprecision involved in producing enrollment. A law school does not admit students with perfect information regarding its yield, that is the percentage of students that will accept offers of admission. The yield is radically dependent on the idiosyncratic preferences of the students admitted. Accordingly, in a given year, highly selective law schools may have ten percent variations in the overall sizes of their enrolled classes, much less any desired component part. The University of Michigan Law School is no exception, enrolling 341 students in 1998, 339 in 1997, 319 in 1996, 340 in 1995, 363 in 1994. Given these uncertainties, the quite narrow range of minority enrollment percentages that the Law School achieves is remarkable for its consistency, and it seems to me that the Law School is doing all it can to achieve a target number of minorities. I take no comfort in the statistically minor variations in minority enrollment. 279 Indeed, the record makes it clear that, to take a hypothetical example, if the Law School were to discover near the end of its process that a large number of its admitted minority students had all decided to attend other schools, thus leaving both a block of empty seats and a huge deficit in the sought-for critical mass, the Law School would bend every effort to fill those seats with minority students. Before all offers of admission are made, substantial numbers of applicants accept, clarifying the likely composition of each class. Law School officials testified that they vigorously monitor the acceptance data with regard to race on a daily basis, see Depo. of Dennis Shields, JA at 2219-20, perhaps to admit minorities that it otherwise would not have or perhaps to admit minorities on the waiting list. This, of course, is the practical equivalent of the segregated waiting lists condemned in other cases. See, e.g., Hopwood v. Texas, 78 F.3d 932, 938 (5th Cir.1996). 280 The combination of the Law School's thinly veiled references to such a target, its critical mass, and relatively consistent results in achieving a particular enrollment percentage, should convince us that the Law School's admissions scheme is functionally, and even nominally, indistinguishable from a quota system. At the very least, however, the Law School's admission plan seems far from employing the mere plus or tip that the majority characterizes its racial preference to be. 281 In order for the language of plus or tip to have real meaning, there would have to be some indication that the other, allegedly similar, plus factors were also of a strength that were anywhere near the potency of the preference here. After all, Justice Powell himself contended that, to be only his plus, race would need to be just one among many factors. As Justice Powell wrote, 282 The file of a particular black applicant may be examined for his potential contribution to diversity without the factor of race being decisive when compared, for example, with that of an applicant identified as an Italian-American if the latter is thought to exhibit qualities more likely to promote beneficial educational pluralism. Such qualities could include exceptional personal talents, unique work or service experience, leadership potential, maturity, demonstrated compassion, a history of overcoming disadvantage, ability to communicate with the poor, or other qualifications deemed important. 283 Bakke, 438 U.S. at 317, 98 S.Ct. 2733 (Powell, concurring). The majority is content to accept the Law School's claim that it considers some of these soft factors. Majority Op. at 747. I would ask whether any of them are remotely comparable in weight. While not every factor would be required to bear equal weight under the Powell view, it seems clear that at least some of these other factors would need to be capable of taking a student's chances from virtual certainty of rejection to virtual certainty of admission. There is no such evidence as to any race-neutral factor, but there is repeated and consistent evidence of such a treatment of race and ethnicity. 284