Protesters fly in from Berkeley to see trial

By Jen Fish

Daily Staff Reporter

DETROIT - Showing their support for affirmative action and hoping to unite student movements across the nation, law students from the University of California at Berkeley took the red-eye to watch yesterday's proceedings.

"We're hoping to work with the students at Michigan," said Serena Lin, a member of the UC-Berkeley Coalition for Diversity. "We want to work together to promote the importance of diversity in law education."

The students joined members of the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary, who were also out in full force yesterday.

BAMN organizers said they plan to picket every day of the trial and will be coordinating with other BAMN chapters across the nation to ensure that student activists maintain a strong presence at the trial.

Students from the UC-Berkeley coalition also stressed they were committed to changing the policies of their own law school, which stopped using affirmative action in 1995.

In 1995, the University of California Board of Regents adopted a resolution that banned the use of race as a factor in admissions, contracting and hiring. A year later, California voters approved Proposition 209, which eliminated the use of gender and race preferences in higher education admissions statewide.

The effects of the regents' resolution and Proposition 209 have been devastating, the students said.

"After Prop. 209 the numbers (of minority students) have drastically dropped," coalition member Marisa Arrona Logue said.

The UC-Berkeley students said they are looking to the University of Michigan admissions cases to decide the future of affirmative action in higher education and possibly reverse the California ban.

Additionally, the students said they are working to "create new ways to get around the same old problems" of arguing diversity and promoting its benefits, coalition member Mohammed Kashmiri said. One proposal the students have is to have a diversity rating added to the U.S. News and World Report rankings of schools.

The Coalition for Diversity is a newly invigorated movement, the members present at yesterday's proceedings said. The University lawsuits have been a call to action for the students.

"It's a positive thing that we have something to rally around. This case is extremely important," coalition member Carlie Ware said.

They were joined by students from Michigan State University, the University of Michigan's Flint campus and San Francisco State University as well as high school students from Oakland, Calif., and Detroit.

"This is really a pivotal moment for the country," said Yvette Felarca, a member of the Berkeley chapter of BAMN and an Oakland, Calif., school teacher.