'U' waits to respond to lawsuit

The University has been granted extra time to submit an official response to the lawsuit that claims its admission policies are unconstitutional.

A verbal agreement Monday between the University and the Center for Individual Rights, the organization that brought the suit against the University on Oct. 14, moves the deadline for the response from Nov. 3 to Dec. 3.

"The parties agreed that the University has until Dec. 3 to answer or otherwise respond to the complaint," said Associate Vice President for University Relations Lisa Baker. "At that time, the University will in some way respond."

The lawsuit challenges University admissions policies, claiming the University's use of race in admission decisions violates the 14th Amendment.

Law Dean Jeffrey Lehman said time extensions are common.

"Generally, an extension of time for answers is perfectly normal," Lehman said. "You want to produce the best answer you can, so it is normal to ask for them and normal for the judge to grant them."

University Law Prof. Samuel Gross said there are many reasons the University may want an extension. "If they had not gotten an extension, that would have been more surprising," Gross said. "Sometimes it takes quite a bit of time to get information together. It can take dozens or hundreds of hours of work."

Baker said she was unable to comment on how the University will respond to the claims. The University's attorneys also have the option of asking for another extension.

Gross said the attorneys can answer in multiple ways. Most likely they will either respond to each claim or ask for a motion to dismiss certain parts of the suit.

"They can say, 'We deny all of the claims,'" Gross said. "Or they can admit to the obvious claims, saying, 'We admit the University of Michigan is a public institution. We admit James Duderstadt is the former president.' Then they can say, 'We deny the following.'"

The defendants named in the suit are the University, the College of Literature, Sciences and the Arts, Duderstadt and University President Lee Bollinger.

Gross said possible motions filed might state that certain people were misnamed in the suit.

"They might claim that there is no justification for some of the people being sued to be sued," Gross said. "I wouldn't be surprised if they claim that half of the people are not proper parties.

"Or they may even say that all of them are not proper parties, except for the University," he said. "They may say these are just people working as agents of the University."

Gross said it's possible the answer might state that Duderstadt is not an appropriate party to be named in the suit since he is no longer the University's president and therefore no longer affects the University's admission's policies.

Gross also said suing a unit such as LSA is peculiar. "I think LSA is not normally an appropriate defendant," he said.

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