Court Opinion

ID: 9779542
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 22:28:59.057253+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:20:16.215665
License: Public Domain

JULIA SMITH GIBBONS, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I join the majority’s opinion with respect to the procedural issues discussed in part *634II.B. I disagree, however, with the majority’s conclusion that Proposal 2 is unconstitutional under a political restructuring theory of the Equal Protection Clause. In my view, Proposal 2 does not impermissibly restructure the political process in the state of Michigan to burden the ability of minorities to enact beneficial legislation. Moreover, Proposal 2 is not unconstitutional under traditional equal protection analysis. I therefore respectfully dissent.
I.
In November 2006, the people of Michigan amended the Michigan Constitution to prohibit the state, including its public colleges and universities, from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, and public contracting. Mich. Const, art. I, § 26. A primary purpose and effect of this amendment was to remove the ability of state colleges and universities to employ then-existing race- and gender-preference admissions policies. Accordingly, the plaintiffs challenge the amendment as it relates to the state’s colleges and universities.
Because “[cjontext matters when reviewing race-based governmental action under the Equal Protection Clause,” Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306, 327, 123 S.Ct. 2325, 156 L.Ed.2d 304 (2003), it is important to consider the legal backdrop from which the effort to amend the Michigan Constitution unfolded. See Hunter v. Erickson, 393 U.S. 385, 391-92, 89 S.Ct. 557, 21 L.Ed.2d 616 (1969) (assessing the challenged referendum provision against the relevant legislative and legal background). The race-based admissions polices used by state universities in Michigan are familiar to the courts and the people of Michigan. See Coal. to Defend Affirmative Action v. Granholm, 473 F.3d 237, 240 (6th Cir.2006). The policies employed by the University of Michigan formed the basis of the significant and highly publicized Equal Protection challenges in Grutter and Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 244, 123 S.Ct. 2411, 156 L.Ed.2d 257 (2003). And, as noted by the majority, the effort by Ward Connerly and Jennifer Gratz to mobilize for a statewide ballot initiative occurred in direct response to the result in Grutter. Granholm, 473 F.3d at 240.
In Grutter, the Supreme Court concluded that diversity is a compelling state interest that can justify the narrowly tailored use of race in selecting applicants for admission to public universities. 539 U.S. at 325, 328, 123 S.Ct. 2325. Analyzing the highly individualized, holistic approach taken by the University of Michigan Law School, which considered “all pertinent elements of diversity,” id. at 341, 123 S.Ct. 2325 (quoting Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265, 317, 98 S.Ct. 2733, 57 L.Ed.2d 750 (1978) (opinion of Powell, J.)), the Court found that the university had narrowly tailored its approach to the purpose of diversity in higher education. Id. at 333-41, 123 S.Ct. 2325. In Grutter’s companion case the Court, however, reaffirmed that the use of racial classifications are a “highly suspect tool,” id. at 326, 123 S.Ct. 2325 (quoting Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co., 488 U.S. 469, 493, 109 S.Ct. 706, 102 L.Ed.2d 854 (1989) (plurality opinion)), subject to strict scrutiny because “ ‘[rjacial classifications are simply too pernicious to permit any but the most exact connection between justification and classification.’ ” Gratz, 539 U.S. at 270, 123 S.Ct. 2411 (quoting Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U.S. 448, 537, 100 S.Ct. 2758, 65 L.Ed.2d 902 (1980) (Stevens, J., dissenting)). The Court reiterated that “remedial race-based governmental action generally ‘remains subject to continuing oversight to assure that it will work the least harm possible to other innocent persons competing for the benefit.’” Gutter, 539 U.S. at 341, 123 *635S.Ct. 2325 (quoting Bakke, 438 U.S. at 308, 98 S.Ct. 2733 (opinion of Powell, J.)). Finally, the Court was mindful that because “ ‘[a] core purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to do away with all governmentally imposed discrimination based on race’ ... race-conscious admissions policies must be limited in time.” Id. at 341—42, 123 S.Ct. 2325 (quoting Palmore v. Sidoti, 466 U.S. 429, 432, 104 S.Ct. 1879, 80 L.Ed.2d 421 (1984)).
The Court also indicated that the ability to fashion a time limit on the use of race-conscious admissions policies is not a tool placed primarily in the hands of the courts. Rather, it is first and foremost in the hands of states and their public universities. See Grutter, 539 U.S. at 342, 123 S.Ct. 2325 (“[T]he durational requirement can be met by sunset provisions in race-conscious academic polices and periodic reviews to determine whether racial preferences are still necessary to achieve student body diversity.”); see also id. (describing state-law prohibitions on the use of racial preferences in admissions in California, Florida, and Washington). Indeed, the Court has repeatedly confirmed that the repeal or modification of race-related polices does not necessarily run afoul of the Equal Protection Clause. See Hunter, 393 U.S. at 390 n. 5, 89 S.Ct. 557; Washington v. Seattle Sch. Dist. No. 1, 458 U.S. 457, 483, 102 S.Ct. 3187, 73 L.Ed.2d 896 (1982) (“[T]he simple repeal or modification of desegregation or antidiscrimination laws, without more, has never been viewed as embodying a presumptively invalid racial classification.” (quoting Crawford v. Bd. of Educ., 458 U.S. 527, 539, 102 S.Ct. 3211, 73 L.Ed.2d 948 (1982))). A state or university may conclude, for example, that the use of racial preferences may no longer be necessary to further the interest in diversity, that the burdens associated with those preferences are too heavy, or that the means employed no longer enjoy legitimacy in the eyes of the people. And, as was the case with the California prohibition mentioned by the Court, it follows that a state or its electorate may act to impose a time limit, or end the use of racial preferences outright, when its public universities have not. See Coal. for Econ. Equity v. Wilson, 122 F.3d 692 (9th Cir.1997).
It is from this legal backdrop that the popular effort to amend the Michigan Constitution to prevent the use of affirmative action in admissions developed. Taking it into account, we must turn to whether Michigan’s repeal of this type of racial classification by constitutional amendment violates the Equal Protection Clause.
II.
As an initial matter, a broad view of plaintiffs contentions provides context and a bit of common sense about the requirements of the Constitution. Plaintiffs’ argument is that the Equal Protection Clause prohibits Michigan from prohibiting discrimination in admissions to public colleges and universities through the passage of Proposal 2. Calling an admissions practice a preference does not transform the practice into a nondiscriminatory one; preferences do indeed permit discrimination. Yet, we know that the Equal Protection Clause prevents “official conduct discriminating on the basis of race.” Washington v. Davis, 426 U.S. 229, 96 S.Ct. 2040, 48 L.Ed.2d 597 (1976).
Grutter and Gratz represent the Supreme Court’s response to a university’s use of racial preferences in admissions and together develop the circumstances under which policies that take race into account may be used. The burden on the university is a difficult one; it may use race as a factor only when there is a compelling interest in doing so and when the use is narrowly tailored. Racial preferences are not favored under the law but must be exactingly justified. No constitutional ju*636risprudence exists that requires their use. And, as the Supreme Court has told us, “the Equal Protection Clause is not violated by the mere repeal of race-related legislation or policies that were not required by the Federal Constitution in the first place.” Crawford, 458 U.S. at 538-39, 102 S.Ct. 3211.
Within this broad constitutional landscape, plaintiffs contend that passage of Proposal 2 violated the Equal Protection Clause. They base their argument on Hunter and Seattle. These cases, without a doubt, secure racial minorities the right to equal process within the political arena. Seattle, 458 U.S. at 467, 102 S.Ct. 3187; Hunter, 393 U.S. at 391, 89 S.Ct. 557. They prohibit a “distortion of the political process,” Crawford, 458 U.S. at 538 n. 14, 102 S.Ct. 3211, by which a state “disadvantage[s] [a] particular group by making it more difficult to enact legislation in its behalf,” Seattle, 458 U.S. at 476, 102 S.Ct. 3187 (quotation marks and citation omitted), by “makfing] use of a more complex governmental structure,” id. at 477, 102 S.Ct. 3187, or “lodging decisionmaking authority over the question at a new and remote level of government,” id. at 483, 102 S.Ct. 3187. But they do not guarantee that racial minorities will win every political battle. Id. at 484, 102 S.Ct. 3187 (“If a governmental institution is to be fair, one group cannot always be expected to win----” (quoting Hunter, 393 U.S. at 394, 89 S.Ct. 557 (Harlan, J., concurring))). Nor do they hold that the repeal of those policies is impermissible, although they may be preferred by significant numbers of racial minorities. Rather, Hunter, Seattle, and Crawford outline the constitutional limits on a particular type of political restructuring: the enactment of comparative structural burdens on “the ability of minority groups to achieve beneficial legislation.” Seattle, 458 U.S. at 467, 102 S.Ct. 3187. Because these cases do not prohibit “every attempt to address a racial issue,” id. at 485, 102 S.Ct. 3187, it is important to consider the limiting bounds of this type of political restructuring challenge.
A.
In reviewing a Hunter political process challenge, we must, of course, consider whether the particular legislation or popular referendum at issue serves to impermissibly “distort” the state’s political processes. Crawford, 458 U.S. at 541, 102 S.Ct. 3211. Seattle makes clear that “the voters of the polity may express their displeasure through an established legislative or referendum procedure when particular legislation arouses passionate opposition.” 458 U.S. at 483, 102 S.Ct. 3187 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). The state or its voters, however, may not “make[ ] the enactment of racially beneficial legislation difficult” by “lodging decisionmaking authority over the question at a new and remote level of government.” Id. And they may “no more disadvantage any particular group by making it more difficult to enact legislation in its behalf than [they] may dilute any person’s vote.” Id. at 476, 102 S.Ct. 3187 (quoting Hunter, 393 U.S. at 392-93, 89 S.Ct. 557). Seattle and Hunter therefore protect “the ability of minorities to participate in the process of self-government.” Id. at 480 n. 23, 89 S.Ct. 557.
In Hunter, the impermissible political restructuring took the form of a more burdensome extra step in the City of Akron’s legislative process. The people of Akron had amended their city charter by popular referendum to require that any city ordinance regulating real property “on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or ancestry” be subject to approval by a mandatory popular referendum, while all other ordinances regulating real estate only required the approval of the City Council. Hunter, 393 U.S. at 387, 390, 89 *637S.Ct. 557. The Hunter Court concluded that this amounted to an unconstitutional political restructuring because the charter amendment “obviously made it substantially more difficult to secure enactment of ordinances” barring discrimination in real estate. Id. at 390, 89 S.Ct. 557. Indeed, those minority voters supporting property-related anti-discrimination ordinances would not only have to win a legislative battle in the Akron City Council, but they would then have to win a public-referendum battle as well. Id. The default political structure entrenched in the mechanisms of a city council, which may allow for particularized and localized electoral pressure on individual council members, was therefore supplemented with the far more diffuse, and potentially onerous, political structure inherent in winning popular approval of a law with a discrete set of immediate beneficiaries.
In Seattle, the voters of the state effectuated a more implicit restructuring of the legislative process. In the 1970s, the locally elected Seattle school board passed and implemented a series of school desegregation programs aimed at alleviating the isolation of minority students caused by segregated housing patterns. Seattle, 458 U.S. at 459-60, 102 S.Ct. 3187. In 1977, local opponents of these measures, having previously failed in their attempt to recall School Board members who had voted for desegregation programs, id. at 460 n. 1, 102 S.Ct. 3187, organized to end Seattle’s use of the programs at the statewide level, id. at 461-62, 102 S.Ct. 3187. Their statewide initiative provided that local school boards could not employ mandatory desegregative busing except possibly when required as part of a judicial decree. Id. at 462-63, 102 S.Ct. 3187. In enacting this initiative, the people of Washington thus moved the locus of political authority over this particular issue from the local to the statewide level, “requiring] those championing school integration to surmount a considerably higher hurdle than persons seeking comparable legislative action.” Id. at 474, 102 S.Ct. 3187.
In both cases where the Court found an impermissible political restructuring, the relevant lawmaking authority was reallocated from a local legislative body to the “more complex government structure,” id. at 477, 102 S.Ct. 3187, of the city- or statewide general electorate,1 thereby placing a “comparative structural burden ... on the political achievement of minority interests,” id. at 475 n. 17, 102 S.Ct. 3187. A key consideration in analyzing a Hunter political structure challenge, therefore, is whether the challenged law impacts the ability of minorities to secure “legislation that is their interest” as minorities. Id. at 474, 102 S.Ct. 3187; see also id. at 475 n. 17, 102 S.Ct. 3187 (“Thus, in Hunter, the procedures for enacting racial legislation were modified in a such a way as to place effective control in the hands of the citywide electorate. Similarly here [in Seattle ], the power to enact racial legislation has been reallocated.”). Given the structural considerations inherent in this type of Equal Protection challenge, it is important to fully examine the particular political structures at work in this case to determine whether the people of Michigan have restructured the state’s lawmaking process in the manner prohibited by Hunter and Seattle.
i.
“The Michigan Constitution confers a unique constitutional status on [its] public universities and their governing boards.” Federated Publ’ns, Inc. v. Bd. of Trustees of Mich. State Univ., 460 Mich. 75, 594 N.W.2d 491, 495-96 (1999) (citing Mich. *638Const, art. VIII, §§ 5 and 6). The status of these boards has been described by the Michigan Supreme Court as “the highest form of juristic person known to the law, a constitutional corporation of independent authority, which, within the scope of its functions, is coordinate with and equal to that of the legislature.” Id. at 496 n. 8 (quoting Bd. of Regents of the Univ. of Mich. v. Auditor Gen., 167 Mich. 444, 132 N.W. 1037, 1039 (1911)). Each governing board is vested with the power of “general supervision of its institutions and the control and direction of all expenditures from the institution’s funds.”2 Mich. Const, art. VIII, § 5. With this power comes significant independence, as the state constitution “limit[s] the Legislature’s power” over the universities such that it “may not interfere with the management and control of’ the universities. Federated Publ’ns, 594 N.W.2d at 497 (quotation marks and citation omitted). Therefore, the “constitutional autonomy of these institutions is plenary as to its educational programs, but does not insulate them from the health and safety laws of the state.” 1979-1980 Mich. Op. Att’y Gen. 578, 1980 WL 114008 (1980); see also Federated Publ’ns, 594 N.W.2d at 497.
The constitution provides for eight-member governing boards, elected to statewide office for eight-year terms.3 Mich. Const, art. VIII, § 5. Elections are typically staggered, with, for example, an election every two years for regents of the University of Michigan. See About the Board of Regents, http://www.regents. umich.edu/about/ (last visited May 4, 2011); MSU Board of Trustees, http://www. trustees.msu.edu/about/establishment.html (last visited May 4, 2011); About the Board of Governors, http://bog.wayne.edu/ about.php (last visited May 4, 2011).
As a preliminary matter, the majority suggests that our examination of the pertinent political structures must end with the Michigan Constitution. The majority opinion concludes that we may not rely on the testimony of university officials because the structure of the colleges and universities is a “question of law, for it is set by constitution, statutes and regulations.” (Maj. Op. at 622.) Here, the nature of the decision-making process for admissions is one of both law and fact, and the witnesses gave instructive testimony that was within their personal knowledge.4 Examination *639of the record is appropriate to ascertain how the decisions at issue are in fact made.
Although these universities and their respective boards are created by the Michigan Constitution, the admissions policies are placed within the control of the boards or school authorities only within each board’s bylaws. See University of Michigan Board of Regents, Bylaws Chapter VIII: Admission and Registration of Students, http://www.regents.umich.edu/ bylaws/bylaws08.html (last visited May 4, 2011) (vesting responsibility for the admission of students in the associate vice provost and executive director of undergraduate admissions at the Ann Arbor campus, in the director of admissions and orientation at the Dearborn campus, and in the director of undergraduate admissions at the Flint campus); Michigan State University Board of Trustees, Bylaws, http:// www.trustees.msu.edu/bylaws/# article8 (last visited May 4, 2011) (“The [MSU] Board encourages and supports the faculty in the development of educational and other programs.... Upon the recommendation of the President the Board may determine and establish the qualifications of students for admission at any level.... ”); Wayne State University Board of Governors, Statutes, http://bog.wayne.edu/code/ 2_34_09.php (last visited May 4, 2011) (“After consultation with the College or School, the [Board-elected] President or his/her designee is authorized to establish specific admissions standards for degree programs.”). Thus, the admissions policies are not set forth by the state constitution, and it is necessary to look to testimony to determine where the power to set admissions policy lies.
The governing boards have fully delegated the responsibility for establishing admissions standards to several program-specific administrative units within each institution, which set admissions criteria through informal processes that can include a faculty vote. (DE 172, Pis.’ Russ. Mot., Ex. I (Univ. Defs.’ Resp.) Nos. 4, 7; DE 203, Pis.’ SJ Mot., Ex. E. (Zearfoss Dep.) at 64, 213-14, Ex. F. (Wu Dep.) at 190-91.) For example, as noted by the majority, the University of Michigan Law School admissions policy is set exclusively by the law school faculty admissions committee, with major substantive changes occasionally voted upon by the entire law school faculty. (Maj. Op. at 624 (referring to the admissions committees as “the individuals delegated with principle responsibility for admissions policy”); Zearfoss Dep. at 213.) Similarly, as described by its former dean, at the Wayne State University Law School the ultimate decision whether to change admissions standards rests with the faculty alone. (Wu Dep. at 190-91.) Thus, as the Cantrell Plaintiffs readily admit, the “faculty are the primary architects of all the admissions criteria and protocols.” (Reply Br. at 20 n. 11.)
At neither university, however, is there a system in place to review or alter admissions policies at a level above a vote of the faculty. Sarah Zearfoss, the dean of admissions at the University of Michigan Law School, testified that no one could change the school’s admissions policy other than the faculty admissions committee or the faculty itself, because “there’s no higher body” to which someone unhappy with an admissions policy could advocate change. (Zearfoss Dep. at 214.) And Frank Wu, then the dean at Wayne State University Law School, agreed that “only the faculty at the law school has the authority to create and approve the admissions policy” at the school. (Wu Dep. at 191.) Indeed, Wu testified that the admissions policy is not subject to the approval of the Wayne State University Board of Governors, and, in his view, if the Board of Governors attempted to alter the decision *640of the law school’s faculty with respect to criteria for admission, “it would precipitate a constitutional crisis.” (Wu Dep. at 192.) Each institution’s board may superficially have “plenary authority” over its respective institution (see Maj. Op. at 621), but the ultimate authority to set admissions policy rests exclusively with each program-specific faculty within the universities.
ii.
The majority characterizes the dissent as reading Hunter and Seattle too narrowly by defining the political processes with which they deal as “electoral” processes. While the political processes in Hunter and Seattle are electoral in the sense that they relate to what electoral methods are employed to make policy, the majority opinion, not the dissent, draws the line between political and electoral. The point is simply that the situation here differs greatly from that of Hunter and Seattle in the ways described in this opinion; these program-specific faculty admissions committees are far afield from the legislative bodies from which lawmaking authority was removed in Hunter and Seattle. The most crucial and overarching difference, of course, is that the faculty admissions committees and individual faculty members are not politically accountable to the people of Michigan.
In Seattle, the court emphasized that the type of action it found objectionable was the creation of comparative burdens “on minority participation in the political process.” 458 U.S. at 480 n. 23, 102 S.Ct. 3187; see id. at 486, 102 S.Ct. 3187 (“Minorities are no less powerless with the vote than without it when a racial criterion is used to assign governmental power in such a way as to exclude particular racial groups ‘from effective participation in the political proces[s].’ ” (quoting Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U.S. 55, 94, 100 S.Ct. 1490, 64 L.Ed.2d 47 (1980) (White, J., dissenting))). The Seattle majority, however, did not view state university admissions committees as a part of the “political process” in the manner of an elected school board or city council. A dialogue between the majority and dissent in Seattle is particularly instructive on this point. In dissent, Justice Powell, critiquing the potential breadth of the majority’s holding, argued:
Thus, if the admissions committee of a state law school developed an affirmative-action plan that came under fire, the Court apparently would find it unconstitutional for any higher authority to intervene unless that authority traditionally dictated admissions policies. As a constitutional matter, the dean of the law school, the faculty of the university as a whole, the university president, the chancellor of the university, and the board of regents might be powerless to intervene despite their greater authority under state law.
Id. at 498 n. 14, 102 S.Ct. 3187 (Powell, J., dissenting). The majority, however, flatly dismissed this concern as a misunderstanding of the court’s decision: “It is evident, then, that the horribles paraded by the dissent, post, at [footnote 14 of the dissent] — which have nothing to do with the ability of minorities to participate in the process of self-government — are entirely unrelated to this case.” Id. at 480 n. 23, 102 S.Ct. 3187 (emphasis added).
For the Seattle majority, then, an impermissible reordering of the political process meant a reordering of the processes through which the people exercise their right to govern themselves. See id. at 486, 102 S.Ct. 3187 (“And when the State’s allocation of power places unusual burdens on the ability of racial groups to enact legislation specifically designed to overcome the ‘special condition’ of prejudice, the governmental action seriously ‘curtails] the operation of those political processes ordinarily to be relied upon to pro*641tect minorities’ ... from the ‘majoritarian political process.’ ” (emphasis added) (citing United States v. Carolene Prods. Co. 304 U.S. 144, 153 n. 4, 58 S.Ct. 778, 82 L.Ed. 1234 (1938) and San Antonio Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 28, 93 S.Ct. 1278, 36 L.Ed.2d 16 (1973))); id. at 467, 102 S.Ct. 3187 (But the 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.” (emphasis added) (quoting Bolden, 446 U.S. at 84, 100 S.Ct. 1490)).
The evidence reveals that the academic processes at work in state university admissions in Michigan are not “political processes” in the manner contemplated in Seattle. Unlike the Seattle School Board and the Akron City Council, the various university admissions committees in Michigan and their faculty members are unelected. As at most public universities, tenured faculty members have significant vested rights associated with their employment in order to preserve academic freedom and independence. The faculty members who are permitted to vote on policy matters are therefore significantly insulated from political pressure by virtue of their tenure. Such faculty are beholden to no constituency — student, local, or otherwise. And, as demonstrated by the testimony of the law school deans in this case, the people of Michigan have no ability to exert electoral pressure on the university decision makers to change their admissions polices. As they currently stand, the faculty admissions committees are islands unto themselves, vested with the full and unreviewed authority to set admissions policy for their respective university programs.
The majority opinion discounts the differences between facts here and those of Hunter and Seattle by arguing that processes are considered “political” as long as there is “governmental decisionmaking.” In this argument it relies on Lee v. Nyquist, 318 F.Supp. 710 (W.D.N.Y.1970), aff'd Nyquist v. Lee, 402 U.S. 935, 91 S.Ct. 1618, 29 L.Ed.2d 105 (1971), a case from the Western District of New York that was summarily affirmed by the Supreme Court and cited in Seattle. In Nyquist, the court found that a New York statute that “prohibit[ed] state education officials and appointed school boards from assigning students, or establishing, reorganizing or maintaining school districts, school zones or attendance units for the purpose of achieving racial equality in attendance” unconstitutionally reordered the political process in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. Nyquist, 318 F.Supp. at 712, 720. The majority suggests that because appointed school boards were part of the political process at issue in Nyquist, the university faculty admissions committees are similarly part of the political process. (Maj. Op. at 620-21.) The decision in Nyquist, however, made note of how the local boards were accountable to the community: “Parties considering themselves aggrieved by local board actions may seek to have the Commissioner enforce those policies. [The New York statute], however, singles out for different treatment all plans which have as their purpose the assignment of students in order to alleviate racial imbalance.” Id. at 719 (internal citations omitted). Thus, even the appointed school boards were accountable to the community in a way in which the faculty admissions committees certainly are not. Again, the point is not selecting a label for the processes, but examining the factual similarities or dissimilarities of the situations.
There is no “local” university constituency as there is a local constituency for a city council or city school board, i.e., the city’s voters. Rather, despite there being a broad student, faculty, and staff communi*642ty associated with each university, Michigan’s state universities were established as state-wide institutions with a state-wide constituency,5 The faculty admissions committees therefore do not “represent” any local constituency at all. This is particularly important because the Seattle majority looked closely at the fact that Washington’s lodging of political decisionmaking authority over the busing question at the statewide level directly burdened minority interests by “making the enactment of racially beneficial legislation difficult, [because] the particular program might not have inspired opposition had it been promulgated through the usual [local] legislative processes used for comparable legislation.” 458 U.S. at 483-84, 102 S.Ct. 3187. The court continued:
That phenomenon is graphically demonstrated by the circumstances of this litigation. The longstanding desegregation programs in Pasco and Tacoma, as well as the Seattle middle school integration plan, have functioned for years without creating undue controversy. Yet they have been swept away, along with the Seattle Plan, by Initiative 350. As a practical matter, it seems most unlikely that proponents of desegregative busing in small communities such as Tacoma or Pasco will be able to obtain the statewide support now needed to permit them to desegregate the schools in their communities.
Id. at 484 n. 27, 102 S.Ct. 3187. The availability of “local” decisionmaking is therefore important when the political power of groups who could succeed at the local level is “diluted” in the statewide decisionmaking process. The universities here, however, are statewide institutions with a statewide constituency. There is nothing local about them.
The committees are also hardly the model of accessibility and locus of effective lobbying assumed by the majority. While members of the public may attend faculty meetings at which admissions standards are reviewed, there is no mechanism by which a member of the public — student or not — can move the committees to amend the admissions standards. (Wu Dep. at 190; Zearfoss Dep. at 209.) And, while interested students and members of the public are, with advance notice, permitted to speak at faculty meetings to comment on the admissions policies, the committees are not required to consider these comments seriously, issue written findings addressing these concerns, or do more than provide a forum for interested individuals to speak. (Zearfoss Dep. at 209-10; Wu Dep. at 190.) Rather, it appears that the main source of divergent views on admissions policies is the faculty members themselves. (Zearfoss Dep. at 210.)
While the majority appears to see no reason to distinguish between these unelected and unresponsive program-specific faculty admissions committees and the legislative bodies from which lawmaking authority was removed in Hunter and Seattle, a consideration of political accountability in the political process is squarely grounded in the Seattle opinion. In Seattle, the Court undertook a close examination of Washington’s system of “establishing] the local school board, rather than the State, as the entity charged with making decisions of the type at issue,” 458 U.S. at 477, 102 S.Ct. 3187:
But Washington has chosen to meet its educational responsibilities primarily through “state and local officials, boards, and committees,” and the responsibility to devise and tailor educational pro*643grams to suit local needs has emphatically been vested in the local school boards.... Thus “each common school district board of directors” is made “accountable for the proper operation of [its] district to the local community and its electorate.” To this end, each school board is “vested with the final responsibility for the setting of policies ensuring quality in the content and the extent of its educational program.”
Id. at 478, 102 S.Ct. 3187 (citations omitted) (emphasis added); see also id. (noting the “disclosure and reporting provisions specifically designed to ensure the board’s ‘accountability’ to the people of the community ” (emphasis added)). It was only upon its consideration of the state statutory structure’s vesting of decisionmaking in local and politically accountable school boards that the Court could conclude that “placing power over desegregative busing at the state level ... restructured the Washington political process.” Id. at 480, 102 S.Ct. 3187.
Taking this into account, it is difficult to conclude that, in amending their state constitution to prohibit the use of racial preferences in university admissions, the people of Michigan modified “the community’s political mechanisms ... to place effective decisionmaking authority over a racial issue at another level of government.” Id. at 474, 102 S.Ct. 3187 (emphasis added). Michigan has not “ ‘burden[d] all future attempts’ to implement race-conscious admissions policies” “ ‘by lodging decision-making authority over the question at a new and remote level of government.’ ” (Maj. Op. at 626 (quoting Seattle, 458 U.S. at 483, 102 S.Ct. 3187).) Having no direct or indirect influence on the bodies vested with authority to set admissions standards — the faculty committees — the people of Michigan made a political change at the only level of government actually available to them as voters. The Michigan electorate, therefore, as opposed to choosing a more complex structure for lawmaking, employed the one method available to exert electoral pressure on the mechanisms of government.
The lack of a viable electoral mechanism to change university admissions policies at a sub-constitutional level also means that the voters’ use of a constitutional amendment in this instance also does not serve to create “comparative structural burden[s] on the political achievement of minority interests.” Seattle, 458 U.S. at 474 n. 17, 102 S.Ct. 3187. If, as is the evidence before this court, the voters cannot exert electoral pressure on the fully independent faculty committees, then all voters regardless of racial identity compete on the same level for the political achievement of their higher-education interests: the constitutional level. That some academic decision-making remains at the faculty-committee level after the implementation of Proposal 2 is of no moment, because that decision-making is affirmatively not part of the state’s electoral political process. The same policies that fully insulate faculty members from political opprobrium in their academic pursuits also protect them from political influence on their admissions policymaking. Michigan has chosen to structure its university system such that politics plays no part in university admissions at all levels within its constitutionally created universities. The Michigan voters have therefore not restructured the political process in their state by amending their state constitution; they have merely employed it.6
*644III.
If Proposal 2 does not effectuate an invalid restructuring of Michigan’s political process, it is not necessary to reach broader questions relating to the substantive reach of the political restructuring doctrine. But again returning to the broader context, it is useful to highlight the tension between the doctrine and recent decisional law on the constitutionality of racial preferences.
Several courts have grappled with the question of whether racial preferences, those policies “potentially so dangerous” that they must be subject to strict scrutiny and “limited in time,” Grutter, 539 U.S. at 342, 123 S.Ct. 2325, may be eliminated when the people of a state amend their constitution to do away with all classifications based on race. The core constitutional question in each of these decisions is clear: should a race-based classification that is presumptively invalid, but permissible under limited circumstances and for a finite period of time, receive the same structural protections against statewide popular repeal as other laws that inure to the interest of minorities?
The Ninth Circuit in Wilson answered in the negative, concluding that California’s Proposition 209 did not violate equal protection because “[ijmpediments to preferential treatment do not deny equal protection.” 122 F.3d at 708. The court relied on an essential constitutional principle: “While the Constitution protects against obstructions to equal treatment, it erects obstructions to preferential treatment by its own terms.... The Equal Protection Clause, parked at our most ‘distant and remote’ level of government, singles out racial preferences for severe political burdens — it prohibits them in all but the most compelling circumstances.” Id. The California Supreme Court recently agreed with this conclusion, holding that “Seattle cannot fairly be read as holding that the political structure doctrine protects presumptively unconstitutional racial preferences, as opposed to programs intended to bring about immediate equal treatment.” Coral Constr., Inc. v. San Francisco, 50 Cal.4th 315, 113 Cal.Rptr.3d 279, 235 P.3d 947, 960 (2010). This logic has been further cemented by the Northern District of California, reinforcing the holding in Wilson in light of Grutter. In Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and Immigrant Rights v. Schwarzenneger, No. 10-641 SC, 2010 WL 5094278 (N.D.Cal. Dec. 8, 2010), the federal district court stated, “Grutter does not hold that the Constitution requires the use of race in student admission decision; rather, it *645holds that the Constitution tolerates the use of race as one of many admission factors.” Id. at *6. The court went on to note, “Grutter held that racial preferences, while not presumptively unconstitutional, must be limited in time. In so holding, the Supreme Court cited the ‘race neutral alternatives’ to racial preferences used by ‘[universities], where racial preferences are prohibited by state law.’ ” Id. (citing Grutter, 539 U.S. at 342, 123 S.Ct. 2325) (internal citations omitted).
These cases take the same approach as the district court in this case,7 and then-teaching is that equal treatment is the baseline rule embodied in the Equal Protection Clause, from which racial-preference programs are a departure. We therefore must review them with utmost care. Governing precedent is clear on this point: “ ‘A core purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to do away with all governmentally imposed discrimination based on race,’ ” Grutter, 539 U.S. at 341-42, 123 S.Ct. 2325 (quoting Palmore, 466 U.S. at 432, 104 S.Ct. 1879), and “all governmental use of race must have a logical end point,” id. at 342, 123 S.Ct. 2325. Because racial preference programs are exceptional, it is not altogether clear that the political structure doctrine would invalidate Proposal 2 even if it worked a restructuring of the political process in Michigan. See Coral, 113 Cal.Rptr.3d 279, 235 P.3d at 966 (Corrigan, J., concurring) (noting that the United States Supreme Court has “approvingly referred to [California’s Proposition 209] as a step in [the] direction” of ending the “governmental use of race” (citing Grutter, 539 U.S. at 342, 123 S.Ct. 2325)). However, because Proposal 2 itself works no improper political restructuring under the circumstances before us, we need not address that issue today.
IV.
It should also be noted that Proposal 2 is constitutional under a traditional equal protection analysis. Because the majority’s holding turns on the political restructuring analysis, it declines to address this issue.
“The central purpose of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is the prevention of official conduct discriminating on the basis of race.” Washington v. Davis, 426 U.S. 229, 239, 96 S.Ct. 2040, 48 L.Ed.2d 597 (1976). We apply strict scrutiny to those laws that racially classify individuals, Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena, 515 U.S. 200, 216, 115 S.Ct. 2097, 132 L.Ed.2d 158 (1995), and intermediate scrutiny to those laws that classify individuals based on gender, United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515, 531, 116 S.Ct. 2264, 135 L.Ed.2d 735 (1996). Racial classifications are subject to strict scrutiny if (1) the law classifies on its face or (2) the law has a discriminatory impact and a discriminatory purpose. See Davis, 426 U.S. at 241, 96 S.Ct. 2040. The district court concluded that Proposal 2, which prohibits racial classifications, a fortiori does not classify facially on the basis of race. Coal. to Defend Affirmative Action, 539 F.Supp.2d at 951. Although the district court did find “sufficient evidence to establish a fact question on the disparate impact part of the test,” it did not find a discriminatory purpose. Id. Indeed, it stated that “the demonstration of a discriminatory purpose ... dooms [the] conventional equal protection argument.” Id. Furthermore, the district court found the *646equal protection argument based on gender “even less compelling” due to the less exacting level of scrutiny. Id. at 952. I agree with the conclusions of the district court.
Proposal 2 does not establish a facial racial classification because its text does not draw distinctions on the basis of race; in fact, it prohibits them. Additionally, Proposal 2 does not classify racially on an impact theory because it lacks a discriminatory purpose. “[A]bsent a referendum that facially discriminates racially, or one where although facially neutral, the only possible rationale is racially motivated, a district court cannot inquire into the electorate’s motivations in an equal protection clause context.” Arthur v. Toledo, 782 F.2d 565, 574 (6th Cir.1986). Thus, no heightened level of scrutiny need be applied to Proposal 2, and under rational basis review, Proposal 2 is easily justifiable. Proposal 2 does not violate the Equal Protection Clause under the conventional analysis.
V.
For the foregoing reasons, I would conclude that Proposal 2 does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution under either a political restructuring theory or traditional theory of Equal Protection. Accordingly, I would affirm the judgment of the district court.

. In Seattle, Initiative 350 could also have been repealed by the state legislature after a period of two years. See 458 U.S. at 463 n. 4, 102 S.Ct. 3187.

.The Michigan Constitution divides its state public universities into two categories. The first category, detailed in Mich. Const, art. VIII, § 5, consists of the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, and Wayne State University. The second category includes "other institutions of higher education established by law having authority to grant baccalaureate degrees.” Mich. Const, art. VIII, § 6. This category includes, for example, Eastern Michigan University, Central Michigan University, and Grand Valley State University. See Mich. Const, art. VIII, § 4 (listing universities for which the state legislature shall appropriate moneys). Because the Plaintiffs focus on the universities described in section five, and because it is unclear from the record whether the universities described in section six employ race-conscious admissions policies, the following discussion will primarily pertain to the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, and Wayne State University.

. By contrast, the governing boards of the other state universities are appointed by the governor by and with the advice and consent of the state senate. Mich. Const, art. VIII, § 6.

. Oddly, the majority characterizes this testimony as opinion testimony inadmissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 701. To the extent the witnesses offered opinions, which were hardly the thrust of their testimony, their lay opinions were perfectly admissible. Any opinions were rationally based on the witnesses' perceptions, helpful to an understanding of the testimony or a fact in issue, and not based on the specialized knowledge of experts.

. Indeed, some students, prospective students, alumni, and faculty members at each university are not members of that state-wide constituency, comprised of citizens and voters of the state of Michigan.

. Even if — contrary to the evidence before the court — the people of Michigan could exercise effective electoral control over the board of governors at each respective state institution such that they could repeal the use of racial preferences, it is not clear that a choice to make use of a constitutional amendment in *644that instance would amount to the creation of a comparative political burden on the achievement of minority interests. Indeed, it would make use of neither a more complex or onerous structure of government nor remove the locus of political power from the local to statewide level. Seattle, 458 U.S. at 477, 480, 102 S.Ct. 3187. Given the eight-year terms and staggered elections for board members, and the fact that electoral change must happen at the governing board of each individual state university, the process of effectuating political change through the board of governors appears to be arguably a more complex process than the comparative burden of a statewide referendum. And both types of elections — the board member elections and the constitutional referendum — occur at the statewide level with an electorate composed of the at-large statewide voting pool. There are therefore no inherent structural benefits or protections for minority voters in one system over the other. As opposed to the multidistrict Akron city council in Hunter, for example, there is no mechanism by which minority voters could exercise bloc or regional voting in the board of governors system in a way that they could not in the state’s constitutional referendum process. The use of the constitutional amendment mechanism, therefore, would not work to create a comparative political burden of the kind found in Hunter and Seattle.

. "[Affirmative action programs not mandated by the obligation to cure past discrimination are fundamentally different than laws intended to protect against discrimination.” Coal. to Defend Affirmative Action v. Regents of the Univ. of Mich., 539 F.Supp.2d 924, 957 (E.D.Mich.2008).