Judge hears from student on stand

JEFF HURVITZ/Daily

Intervening defendants Jodi Masley and LSA junior Erika Dowdell stand outside the courthouse in Detroit yesterday. Dowdell testified that she encounters racism "on a daily basis" at the University.

By Jen Fish

Daily Staff Reporter

DETROIT - Erika Dowdell, an LSA junior who plans on attending law school, told U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman yesterday that she does not think she would have been accepted to the University if not for affirmative action programs, despite a 3.7 grade point average in high school.

Describing her experiences in the Detroit public school system to a filled courtroom, Dowdell said she was motivated to go to Cass Technical High School in hopes of receiving greater educational opportunities.

As a student at Cass Tech, Dowdell said she didn't realize until her senior year of the greater advantages afforded to white suburban students.

"They were given every type of resource that we didn't even know existed," she said.

At the University, Dowdell said there are definite assumptions white students make about their black counterparts, and that she experiences racism "on a daily basis."

Calling affirmative action "a simple acknowledgment of history," Dowdell also said she "could never participate in a University that can't admit the truth" that there is a history of discrimination and segregation in the United States.

Dowdell's testimony opened the case for the intervening defendants. The intervening defendants are a coalition of students and affirmative action and civil rights advocates who contend that affirmative action policies are necessary to remedy past and present discrimination.

Dowdell's testimony was often met with applause and murmurs of agreement from the students seated in the courtroom. The audience also did not hesitate to voice its skepticism at the standing objection made by the Center for Individual Rights against Dowdell's testimony.

CIR attorney F. Lawrence Purdy argued that Dowdell's testimony, while "compelling," had no relevance to the issues at trial.

Miranda Massie, lead counsel for the intervenors said "you can't understand the questions set without engaging the questions of race and racism in American life."

Also testifying for the intervenors was educational policy expert Gary Orfield. A professor at Harvard, Orfield said he believed using affirmative action to achieve diversity is absolutely necessary for a multitude of reasons.

A majority of black and white students, he said, are in segregated schools that give them very little opportunity to engage with students of different races. Michigan, he said, is among the most segregated states in the country.

In a study of Harvard and Michigan law students, Orfield said he found that more than half of the students had either little or no contact with people of other races.

This kind of segregation has increased over the years, he said, despite the public's belief that most race problems have been solved.

"We're going backwards," he said. "We still have profound, pervasive inequality."

But Orfield also cautioned against depending on affirmative action to solve race problems.

"Affirmative action needs to be constantly monitored and altered," he said outside the courtroom. "It's not the solution, only a way to respond."