In answer, University defends admissions policies

The University's answer to the lawsuit against the Law School's admissions policies maintains that Barbara Grutter, a 44-year-old Plymouth woman, was not discriminated against when she applied to the school in 1996.

The answer, filed Dec. 22 in the U.S. District Court in Detroit, also reaffirms the University's commitment to using race as one of many factors in the Law School's admissions process.

"Defendants state that the University of Michigan Law School uses race as a factor in admissions, as a part of a broad array of qualifications and characteristics of which racial or ethnic origin is but a single though important element," the University stated in its answer.

Terry Pell, senior legal counsel for the Center for Inidividual Rights, said the University's answer was expected. CIR is the Washington D.C.-based law firm that is challenging the University's affirmative-action policies in two separate suits against the admissions processes used by the College of Literature, Sciences and the Arts and the Law School.

"The University continues to deny the obvious, that race is the prominent factor in the admissions process, and we look forward to going to trial over that," Pell said.

CIR filed the suit against the Law School on Dec. 3, claiming the school unfairly uses racial preferencing in its admissions policies.

Pell said it will probably take a year for the case to reach trial. In coming months, both CIR and University attorneys will question witnesses and exchange materials to prepare for the trial.

The University's answer "is completely normal in a case like this," Pell said. "Now we talk to the judge about setting a schedule."

The University's lawyers also asked U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman to dismiss the case, as they did in their answer to the complaint against LSA's admissions policies.

University officials have openly supported using affirmative action as a constitutional way to create diversity on campus.

"As evident in the answer, we intend to aggressively defend our policy, just as we will with the suit that was filed earlier," said Associate Vice President for University Relations Lisa Baker.

Pell said CIR looks forward to the trial and is certain it will prove the Law School's admissions practices are illegal.

"We're quite confident that our client will be vindicated," Pell said. "It's true that race is the predominant factor, which is unconstitutional."

Pell said the only significant element of the University's answer is that it admits race is taken into consideration in the admissions process.

"There's even less here than there is in the answer to the first lawsuit," Pell said. "That was sort of weak anyway."

Grutter would not comment on the answer, deferring all questions to Pell.

When she applied to the Law School in 1996 for the 1997 school year, Grutter was 43 years old. She graduated from Michigan State University in 1978 with a 3.81 GPA and an LSAT score of 161. After completing her undergraduate career, Grutter founded a health-care information consulting firm.

The suit against the Law School is a companion lawsuit, meaning that the CIR welcomes other non-preferred applicants to join Grutter in the class- action suit.

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