Opinion ID: 220149
Heading Depth: 6
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Does Proposal 2 Effect a “Reordering” of the

Text: Political Process so as to Place Special Burdens on Racial Minorities? The next issue is whether Proposal 2 reordered the political process to place special burdens on racial minorities. We find that Proposal 2 burdens racial minorities for the reasons articulated in Part II.A.1.ii.a, supra. As to whether there was a reordering, the Court has found that both implicit and explicit reordering violates the Fourteenth Amendment. See Seattle, 458 U.S. at 474; Hunter, 393 U.S. at 387, 390. In Hunter, the express language of the charter amendment required any ordinance regulating real estate “on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin or ancestry” to be approved by a majority of the electorate and the City Council, as opposed to solely the City Council for other real-estate ordinances. 393 U.S. 387, 390. In Seattle, however, the reordering was implicit: On its face, Initiative 350 simply prohibited school boards from using mandatory busing, but its practical effect was that “[t]hose favoring the elimination of de facto school segregation now must seek relief from the state legislature, or from the statewide electorate” through overturning Initiative 350. 458 U.S. at 474. Nonetheless, “authority over all other student assignment decisions . . . remains vested in the local school board.” Id. The Seattle Court then clarified what sort of reordering contravenes the “political process” theory: “The evil condemned by the Hunter Court was not the particular political obstacle of mandatory referenda imposed by the Akron charter amendment; it was, rather, the comparative structural burden placed on the achievement of minority interests.”7 Id. at 474 n.17 (emphasis added). Thus, any “comparative structural burden,” be it local or state-wide or national, satisfies the reallocation prong of the Hunter/Seattle test. Id. 7 The Court’s statement here rebuffs the dissent’s attempt to argue that the “relevant lawmaking authority” also must be reallocated from a “local legislative body” to a “more complex government structure” with a broader constituency. See Slip Op. at 7. Nos. 08-1387/1389/ Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, et al. v. Page 26 1534; 09-1111 Regents of the Univ. of Mich., et al. We face here an enactment even more troubling than those at issue in Hunter and Seattle, as the hurdle Proposal 2 creates is of the highest possible order. An interested Michigan citizen may use any number of avenues to change the admissions policies on an issue unrelated to race. He may lobby the admissions committees directly, through written or in-person communication if the latter is available, or petition higher administrative authorities at the university: the dean of admissions, the president or dean of the university, or the university’s board. See Part II.A.1.ii.b.1, supra; see also, e.g., Univ. Defs. Admis., Dist. Ct. Docket No. 172 Ex. I, at 11, 14-15, 17-20; Wu Dep., Dist. Ct. Docket No. 203 Ex. F, at 190; Zearfoss Dep., Dist. Ct. Docket No. 205 Ex. 3, at 20910. And there is no question that the admissions committees are very much accountable to the universities’ boards, which retain ultimate—and politically accountable— responsibility over admissions policies. See Mich. Const. art. VIII, §§ 5-6. The individual seeking this non-race-related change may also seek to affect the election—through voting, campaigning, or otherwise—of any one of the eight board members whom the individual believes will champion his cause and revise the review of admissions determinations accordingly. These elections, though state-wide in scope, would likely be much more manageable than those surrounding constitutional amendments, which can be expensive, lengthy, and complex, (see Wilfore Decl., Dist. Ct. Docket No. 203 Ex. C ¶¶ 10, 29-30). Only as a last resort would the effort and expense of campaigning for an amendment to the Michigan Constitution be required—the only option that remains open for proponents of race-based admissions criteria. Meanwhile, a Michigan citizen seeking that Michigan universities adopt racebased admissions policies must now begin by convincing the Michigan electorate to amend the Michigan Constitution. Placing a proposed constitutional amendment abrogating Proposal 2 on the ballot would require either the support of two-thirds of both the Michigan House of Representatives and Senate, see Mich. Const. art. XII, § 1, or the signatures of a number of voters equivalent to at least ten percent of the number of votes cast for all candidates for governor in the preceding general election, see id. art XII, § 2. Nos. 08-1387/1389/ Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, et al. v. Page 27 1534; 09-1111 Regents of the Univ. of Mich., et al. A majority of the voting electorate would then have to approve the amendment. See id. art. XII, §§ 1-2. Only after traversing this difficult and costly process, (see Wilfore Decl., Dist. Ct. Docket No. 203 Ex. C ¶¶ 10, 29-30), would the now-exhausted Michigan citizen reach the starting point of his opponent who sought a non-race-related admissions policy change. By amending Michigan’s Constitution to prohibit university admissions units from utilizing race-conscious admissions policies, proponents of Proposal 2 thus removed the authority to institute racially-focused policies from Michigan’s universities and lodged it at the most remote level of Michigan’s government, the state constitution. In other words, as with the unconstitutional enactment in Hunter, proponents of race-conscious admissions policies now have to obtain the approval of the Michigan electorate and (if they are successful) the admissions units or other university powers, whereas proponents of other admissions policies need only the support of the latter. See Seattle, 458 U.S. at 468, 474 (describing Hunter). The stark contrast between the avenues for political change available to different admissions proponents following Proposal 2 illustrates why the amendment cannot be construed as a mere repeal of an existing race-related policy. Had those favoring abolition of race-conscious admissions successfully lobbied the universities’ admissions units, just as underrepresented minorities did to have these policies adopted in the first place, there would be no equal protection problem. As the Supreme Court has made clear, “‘the simple repeal or modification of desegregation or antidiscrimination laws, without more, never has been viewed as embodying a presumptively invalid racial classification.’” Seattle, 458 U.S. at 483 (quoting Crawford v. Bd. of Educ., 458 U.S. 527, 539 (1982)); accord Hunter, 393 U.S. at 390 n.5. Crawford brings this distinction into focus, because the Court-approved political action in that case (amendment of the California constitution) occurred at the same level of government as the original enactment (a prior amendment of the California constitution), thus leaving the rules of the political game unchanged. 458 U.S. at 532, 540. Nos. 08-1387/1389/ Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, et al. v. Page 28 1534; 09-1111 Regents of the Univ. of Mich., et al. As illustrated above, however, Proposal 2 “works something more than the ‘mere repeal’ of a desegregation law by the political entity that created it.” Seattle, 458 U.S. at 483. Rather, like Initiative 350 did for any future attempt to implement race-based busing (and the Akron city charter amendment did for any future attempt to enact a fair housing ordinance), “by lodging decisionmaking authority over the question at a new and remote level of government,” Proposal 2 “burdens all future attempts” to implement race-conscious admissions policies. Id. By the same token, precisely because Proposal 2 places special burdens on a political program of particular importance to racial minorities, it is not a sufficient response to point out that these minorities remain free to repeal it. The “simple but central principle” of Hunter and Seattle is that the Equal Protection Clause prohibits requiring racial minorities to surmount more formidable obstacles to achieve their political objectives than other groups face. See id. at 469-70. As the Supreme Court has recognized, such special procedural barriers to minority interests discriminate against racial minorities just as surely as—and more insidiously than—substantive legal barriers challenged under the traditional equal protection rubric. See id. at 467 (“[T]he Fourteenth Amendment also reaches a political structure that treats all individuals as equals, yet more subtly distorts governmental processes in such a way as to place special burdens on the ability of minority groups to achieve beneficial legislation.” (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)). Because less onerous avenues to effect political change remain open to those advocating consideration of non-racial factors in admissions decisions, Michigan cannot force those advocating for consideration of racial factors to go down a more arduous road than others without violating the Fourteenth Amendment. We thus conclude that Proposal 2 reorders the political process in Michigan to place special burdens on minority interests. Nos. 08-1387/1389/ Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, et al. v. Page 29 1534; 09-1111 Regents of the Univ. of Mich., et al. iii. Proposed Permutations of the Hunter/Seattle Test a. Is Prohibiting “Preferential Treatment” Different From Prohibiting “Discrimination”? The Attorney General asserts that Hunter and Seattle are inapplicable to Proposal 2 because the cases govern only enactments that burden racial minorities’ ability to obtain protection from discrimination through the political process, whereas Proposal 2 burdens racial minorities’ ability to obtain preferential treatment. In support of this distinction, the Attorney General points to our preliminary injunction ruling, and decisions of the Ninth Circuit and the district court. See Coal. II, 473 F.3d at 251; Coal. for Econ. Equity, 122 F.3d at 708; Coal. IV, 539 F. Supp. 2d at 956-57. None of these decisions is binding on us. See Tenke Corp., 511 F.3d at 542 (“[C]onclusions of law made by a court granting [a] preliminary injunction are not binding at trial on the merits.” (internal quotation mark omitted)); Cross Mountain Coal. v. Ward, 93 F.3d 211, 217 (6th Cir. 1996) (“[T]he decisions of other circuits are entitled to our respect, [but] they are not binding upon us.”). And we do not find them persuasive. We turn first to the distinction at issue and its true meaning. Differentiation between “discrimination” and “preference” in this context finds its origin in the Ninth Circuit. See Coal. for Econ. Equity, 122 F.3d at 707-09. The Coalition for Economic Equity court began by stating that “[e]ven a state law that does restructure the political process can only deny equal protection if it burden’s an individual’s right to equal treatment.” Id. at 707 (emphasis added). The court then continued: “It is one thing to say that individuals have equal protection rights against political obstructions to equal treatment; it is quite another to say that individuals have equal protection rights against political obstructions to preferential treatment.” Id. at 708. In so positing, the Ninth Circuit added another element to the Hunter/Seattle test. That element, stripped of the controversial and obfuscating distinction between “discrimination” and “preference,” boils down to a belief that an enactment violates the Equal Protection Clause under Hunter and Seattle only if it undermines state action that is constitutionally mandated Nos. 08-1387/1389/ Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, et al. v. Page 30 1534; 09-1111 Regents of the Univ. of Mich., et al. (“discrimination”), as opposed to constitutionally permissible (“preference”).8 Put differently: An enactment is unconstitutional if it transgresses a constitutionallymandated action, i.e., an enactment is unconstitutional under the “political process” framework only if the enactment is already unconstitutional under the “traditional” rubric. But this reasoning defies logic. Using this rationale, the political process theory would be superfluous, for an aggrieved citizen could sue to enjoin the unconstitutional law under the traditional equal protection analysis. For that very reason, the Court created the “political process” theory in the context of cases addressing state action that is constitutionally permissible (or “preferential” to use the Attorney General and Ninth Circuit’s terminology). The facts of those very cases thus prohibit this distinction. The Court in Hunter rejected the argument that the Akron amendment’s effect was moot because the amendment was invalid under the 1968 Civil Rights Act, see Hunter, 393 U.S. at 388-89, or that traditional equal protection resolved the case, id. at 389. Seattle even more clearly involved constitutionally-permissible state action, as Initiative 350 responded to a voluntary school board effort to reduce the impact of de facto segregation. 458 U.S. at 460-61. The school board was under no obligation to undertake this effort because there had been no finding that the segregation was motivated by racial discrimination—a fact that the Seattle dissent repeatedly pointed out. See, e.g., id. at 491-92 (Powell, J., dissenting) (“The Court has never held that there is an affirmative duty to integrate the schools in the absence of a finding of unconstitutional segregation. . . . Certainly there is no constitutional duty to adopt mandatory busing in the absence of such a violation.”). Rather, the Board’s plan was an ameliorative measure designed to combat the effects of Seattle’s segregated housing patterns and “alleviate the isolation of minority students.” Id. at 460. It is inaccurate, therefore, to suggest that Initiative 350 made it “more difficult for minorities to obtain protection from 8 This must be so because there is no free-floating “right” to be free of discrimination. That right must therefore find its basis in either the United States Constitution—primarily through the Equal Protection Clause—or a federal statute. The latter was not at issue in Coalition for Economic Equity, so the Equal Protection Clause must ground the right discussed by the Ninth Circuit. Therefore, the only possible reading of the Ninth Circuit’s decision is that the Equal Protection Clause, through the “political process” theory, only protects action which the Equal Protection Clause, through the “traditional” theory, already protects. Nos. 08-1387/1389/ Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, et al. v. Page 31 1534; 09-1111 Regents of the Univ. of Mich., et al. discrimination through the political process.” Coal. II, 473 F.3d at 251. Quite the contrary: As the district court recognized, “[b]ecause prohibiting integration (when it is not constitutionally mandated) is not tantamount to discrimination, . . . the Court in Seattle did not (and could not) rely on the notion that the restructuring at issue impeded efforts to secure equal treatment.”9 Coal. VI, 592 F. Supp. 2d at 951. Similarly, in Nyquist, the New York Legislature responded to attempts to remedy de facto segregation “generated in large part by local housing patterns and economic conditions,” 318 F. Supp. at 717, by passing a law prohibiting “state education officials and appointed school boards from assigning students, or establishing, reorganizing or maintaining school districts . . . for the purpose of achieving racial equality in attendance,” id. at 712. Applying Hunter, the court concluded that “by prohibiting the implementation of plans designed to alleviate racial imbalance in the schools,” the statute “creates a clearly racial classification, treating educational matters involving racial criteria differently from other educational matters and making it more difficult to deal with racial imbalance in the public schools.” Id. at 718-19. In reaching this conclusion, the court rejected the defendants’ argument that this classification did not violate the Equal Protection Clause because “in the absence of de jure segregation, the state is under no obligation to take affirmative action to reduce de facto segregation.” Id. at 719. The court reasoned that the process-based nature of the Hunter inquiry precluded this distinction: 9 In holding that Proposal 2 nonetheless does not violate the Equal Protection Clause, the district court asserted that the race-conscious admissions policies at issue here should be distinguished from the voluntary desegregative busing program at issue in Seattle because, unlike race-conscious admissions policies, “school desegregation programs are not inherently invidious, do not work wholly to the benefit of certain members of one group and correspondingly to the harm of certain members of another group, and do not deprive citizens of rights.” Coal. VI, 592 F. Supp. 2d at 951 (quoting Coal. for Econ. Equity, 122 F.3d at 708 n.16). This purported distinction is erroneous and flies in the face of the Supreme Court’s decisions in Grutter and Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, 551 U.S. 701 (2007). In Grutter, the Supreme Court showed how narrowly-tailored race-conscious admissions programs are not “inherently invidious,” see 539 U.S. at 334-44, and do not work “wholly to the benefit of members of one group,” see id. at 330. The Court explained: “[T]he skills needed in today’s increasingly global marketplace can only be developed through exposure to widely diverse people, cultures, ideas, and viewpoints.” Id. In Parents Involved, the Court held that voluntary school desegregation programs can impose injury, depriving citizens of rights. 551 U.S. at 719. Nos. 08-1387/1389/ Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, et al. v. Page 32 1534; 09-1111 Regents of the Univ. of Mich., et al. [T]he argument that the state has not discriminated because it has no constitutional obligation to end de facto racial imbalance fails to meet the issue under Hunter v. Erickson. The statute places burdens on the implementation of educational policies designed to deal with race on the local level. . . . The discrimination is clearly based on race alone, and the distinction created in the political process, based on racial considerations, operates in practice as a racial classification. Id. Accordingly, the court held the law unconstitutional, a decision that the Supreme Court summarily affirmed, 402 U.S. 935 (1971), and then subsequently relied on in Seattle. It should be unsurprising, then, that the language of these decisions encompasses any legislation in the racial minorities’ interest, and thus is broader than it would be were the Attorney General’s distinction valid. See, e.g., Seattle, 458 U.S. at 467 (noting the Fourteenth Amendment protects against distortions of the political process that “place special burdens on the ability of minority groups to achieve beneficial legislation” (emphasis added)); id. at 470 (requiring searching judicial scrutiny where state action makes it more difficult for racial minorities “to achieve legislation that is in their interest” (emphasis added) (internal quotation mark omitted)); id. at 474 (finding it “enough that minorities may consider busing for integration to be legislation that is in their interest” (emphasis added) (internal quotation mark omitted)); Hunter, 393 U.S. at 393 (“[T]he State may no more disadvantage any particular group by making it more difficult to enact legislation in its behalf than it may dilute any person’s vote . . . .” (emphasis added)); cf. Nyquist, 318 F. Supp. at 720 (holding that the state “has acted to make it more difficult for racial minorities to achieve goals that are in their interest” (emphasis added)). The cases’ context and reasoning, discussed above, crystallize the point of the Hunter/Seattle doctrine. The political process theory does not serve as a duplicative backstop against already unconstitutional action. Instead, it prevents the placement of special procedural obstacles on minority objectives, whatever those objectives may be. The distinction urged by the Attorney General thus erroneously imposes an outcome- Nos. 08-1387/1389/ Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, et al. v. Page 33 1534; 09-1111 Regents of the Univ. of Mich., et al. based limitation on a process-based right. Again, what matters is if racial minorities are forced to surmount procedural hurdles in reaching this goal over which other groups do not have to leap. If racial minorities do, the disparate procedural treatment violates the Equal Protection Clause, regardless of the goal sought. Accordingly, whether “all governmental use of race must have a logical end point,” as the dissent asserts, Slip Op. at 21 (quoting Grutter, 539 U.S. at 342), is irrelevant to the constitutionality of Proposal 2 under Hunter and Seattle. The equal protection injury imposed by Proposal 2 is not the Michigan electorate’s attempt to end affirmative action, but the method by which it sought to do so. b. Does a Law Place Special Burdens on Minorities Even When Multiple Minorities Affected by the Enactment, Cobbled-Together, Would Constitute a Numerical Majority? As to the issue of burdening minorities, the Attorney General argues that Proposal 2 places no special burden on racial minorities because they, together with women, constitute a numerical majority of voters and thus could theoretically repeal Proposal 2.10 In so arguing, he points to the Hunter Court’s statement in dicta that “[t]he majority needs no protection against discrimination and if it did, a referendum might be bothersome but no more than that.” 393 U.S. at 391. The Attorney General’s argument is without merit. Examination of the context of that statement from Hunter reveals that the quotation referred to the racial majority at issue in that case, not the ad-hoc and theoretical numerical majority posited by the Attorney General. See id. And as the district court cogently stated: The argument that racial minorities plus women constitute a majority of the population, and therefore Proposal 2 does not discriminate against minorities . . . borders on nonsense. The attempt to cobble together an artificial coalition of women and racial minorities in an effort to construct a numerical majority of citizens ignores the fact that affirmative action programs generally are targeted to benefit insular groups that separately 10 We address this argument separately because our “racial focus” analysis does not encompass it fully. See Part II.A.1.ii.a, supra. Nos. 08-1387/1389/ Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, et al. v. Page 34 1534; 09-1111 Regents of the Univ. of Mich., et al. have suffered from discriminatory practices in the past because of perceived traits unique to that group alone. Lumping minority groups into a contrived category does not allow any greater political influence over the process of advocating for affirmative action programs to achieve racial parity or otherwise render the process of changing the state constitution “bothersome but no more than that.” Coal. IV, 539 F. Supp. 2d at 956 (quoting Hunter, 393 U.S. at 391); cf. Growe v. Emison, 507 U.S. 25, 41 (1989) (noting that, under the Voting Rights Act, “a court may not presume bloc voting within even a single minority group,” and so “it ma[kes] no sense for . . . [a court to] indulge that presumption as to bloc voting within an agglomeration of distinct minority groups”). Finally, as the Supreme Court has long recognized, minority groups may face political disadvantages independent of their numerical strength. See San Antonio Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 28 (1973) (noting that minority groups may be “saddled with such disabilities, or subjected to such a history of purposeful unequal treatment, or relegated to such a position of political powerlessness as to command extraordinary protection from the majoritarian political process”); cf. Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U.S. 677, 686 n.17 (1973) (observing that women are underrepresented politically even though “[i]t is true, of course, that when viewed in the abstract, women do not constitute a small and powerless minority”). Therefore, it is a considerable oversimplification—and simply inaccurate—to conflate a simple numerical majority comprised of members of different minority groups with a political majority for which “a referendum might be bothersome but no more than that.” Hunter, 393 U.S. at 391. c. Does the Hunter/Seattle Test Contain an Intent Requirement? Drawing on the language from Seattle that Initiative 350 “was effectively drawn for racial purposes,” and “enacted because of, not merely in spite of, its adverse effects upon busing for integration,” 458 U.S. at 471 (internal quotation marks omitted), the Attorney General also argues that a reallocation of political decisionmaking violates the Nos. 08-1387/1389/ Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, et al. v. Page 35 1534; 09-1111 Regents of the Univ. of Mich., et al. Equal Protection Clause only if the Plaintiffs can demonstrate it was motivated by purposeful racial discrimination. However, “the idea that a political restructuring claim must be based on [a finding of] purposeful discrimination finds no support in the [Supreme Court’s] cases.” Coal. IV, 539 F. Supp. 2d at 956. Indeed, in Seattle, the Court expressly rejected this argument. Acknowledging that “‘purposeful discrimination is the condition that offends the Constitution,’” 458 U.S. at 484 (quoting Pers. Adm’r v. Feeney, 442 U.S. 256, 274 (1979)), the Court nonetheless emphasized that “[w]e have not insisted on a particularized inquiry into motivation in all equal protection cases.” Id. at 485. Rather, “‘[a] racial classification, regardless of purported motivation, is presumptively invalid and can be upheld only upon an extraordinary justification.’” Id. (quoting Feeney, 442 U.S. at 272). Legislation like that in Hunter, Seattle, and here, which restructures the political process along racial lines and places special burdens on racial minorities, thus “falls into an inherently suspect category,” regardless of whether purposeful racial discrimination is its demonstrated motivation. Id. iv. “Political Process” Conclusion Proposal 2 thus modifies Michigan’s political process “to place special burdens on the ability of minority groups to achieve beneficial legislation.” See Seattle, 458 U.S. at 467. v. Strict Scrutiny Because Proposal 2 fails the Hunter/Seattle test, it must survive strict scrutiny to stand. See Seattle, 458 U.S. at 485. Under strict scrutiny, the Attorney General must prove that Proposal 2 is “necessary to further a compelling state interest.” Crawford, 458 U.S. at 536. In Seattle, the Court did not consider whether a compelling state interest might justify a state’s enactment of a racially-focused law that restructures the political process, because the government did not make the argument. Seattle, 458 U.S. Nos. 08-1387/1389/ Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, et al. v. Page 36 1534; 09-1111 Regents of the Univ. of Mich., et al. at 485 n.28. Because the Attorney General likewise does not assert that Proposal 2 satisfies a compelling state interest, we need not consider this argument either.11 We therefore hold that those portions of Proposal 2 that affect Michigan’s public institutions of higher education violate the Equal Protection Clause.12 2. “Traditional” Equal Protection Analysis Having found that Proposal 2 deprives the Plaintiffs of equal protection of the law under a “political process” theory, we do not reach the question of whether it also violates the Equal Protection Clause when assessed under the traditional framework.