Suit intervenors speak out

Sharing personal stories and citing historical facts last night, several students involved in the University's College of Literature, Science and the Arts and Law School admissions lawsuits vocalized the message they had sketched behind them on a chalkboard - "Our Voices Will Be Heard."

An audience of about 25 people sat in Auditorium B of Angell Hall, where two University students and one Wayne State University student tried to garner support for their cause - creating a mass movement to achieve social equality. A focus of their efforts is defending the University's use of race as a factor in its admissions process.

JESSICA JOHNSON/Daily Shanta Driver, a second-year student in Wayne State University's Law School, speaks in Angell Hall last night during an event hosted by a group intervening in the two lawsuits challenging the University's admissions policies.

Both of the University students who spoke last night are members of a group that was recently allowed to intervene in the lawsuit challenging the Law School's use of race in its admissions process.

In an unprecedented move, a Sixth Circuit Court judge last month allowed the group to become a co-defendant in the case, giving it the same status and access to the case as both the University and the plaintiffs. A second Sixth Circuit Court judge allowed a similar intervention in the lawsuit facing the College of Literature, Science and the Arts.

Both University schools were sued nearly two years ago by white applicants who were denied admission to the respective schools. These applicants claim the University unfairly admitted less-qualified minority students over them because race was used as a factor in the process. The Washington, D.C.-based Center for Individual Rights is representing both plaintiffs in the LSA suit and the plaintiff in the Law School case.

The four women speakers, from different ethnic backgrounds, spent the first portion of last night's forum educating the audience about the history of segregation, starting with the 1954 landmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision, which declared the "separate but equal" 1896 educational doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson unconstitutional.

"My goal is to win this case so that affirmative action can still prevail at this University," LSA sophomore Erika Dowdell said. "My message is to join the fight."

Dowdell shared an anecdote that she said demonstrated unawareness of issues to minority students on campus. Dowdell said that last semester in a biology discussion section, her graduate student instructor asked each student an ice-breaker question. She said the GSI asked others questions such as what their favorite movie. But when the GSI turned to Dowdell - a black student - the GSI asked what animal she thought she resembled most.

"GSIs need to be conscious, more sensitive and more aware of issues affecting students of color," Dowdell said, blaming these sorts of incidents on a lack of campus integration.

An audience member gasped in response to Dowdell's story.

Shanta Driver, a second-year student at WSU's Law School, encouraged people to support the intervenors.

"We urge everyone here to help build a new civil rights movement," Driver said.

Speaking about affirmative action, racism and other issues related to a movement for social equality was visibly intense for many present.

Clasping her hands together and reaching her arms out to the audience, intervenor and Law third-year student Jodi Masley said "help us to define this attack because we have so much more to gain than to lose."

Law third-year student Winnie Kao introduced the speakers calling the Law School admissions case an "historic event." She spoke about being underrepresented as an Asian American in the Law School, adding that she knows only two other law students of her ethnicity.

09-23-99