Judge's ruling on affirmative action
sends shockwaves across the nation
WASHINGTON — In one of the
most sweeping rulings yet against
affirmative action at state colleges,
a federal judge in Georgia has set
up a potent new test of a 22-year
old Supreme Court ruling that
seemed to permit the use of race in
selecting incoming freshmen.
U.S. District Judge B. Avant
Edenfield of Savannah declared
that the court’s famous Bakke deci
sion in 1978 should never have
been interpreted as approval of
racial preference to achieve “diver
sity” among students.
“A majority of the court has nev
er formally announced whether di
versity, particularly student diver
sity in higher education, does or
does not” qualify as a sufficient
reason to justify picking some stu
dent entrants on the basis of race,
the judge said.
In the Bakke decision, the
Supreme Court struck down a Cali
fornia medical school’s admissions
quota for minority students, but the
controlling opinion by Justice
Lewis F. Powell Jr. declared that “a
diverse student body” was a valid
educational goal and could be pro
moted by using race as a “plus” fac
tor supporting minority admissions.
Edenfield, besides rejecting that
conclusion, went on to say — as no
other federal court has — that the
whole idea of “diversity” as a valu
able educational policy goal has no
support in law or in reasoning, and
never has had.
The concept of diversity, the
judge added, is so subject to ma
nipulation “that it can instantly be
conscripted to march in any ideo
logue’s army.” No college admis
sions plan, he said, could be craft
ed in a constitutional way to
promote racial diversity.
The judge’s conclusions directly
contradict the way countless state
institutions have interpreted the
high court’s Bakke decision over
the two decades since it was an
nounced. Among those that did so
was the University of Georgia.
But, in his ruling, Edenfield nul
lified the university's use of race as
one among other “plus” factors in
the choice of the final 10 percent to
15 percent of each year’s entering
freshman class.
The University of Georgia, vow
ing to continue to seek ways to en
courage minority student admis
sions, said it was studying the
ruling and has not yet decided on
an appeal. Civil rights lawyers said
it was likely to be appealed to the
11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals,
based in Atlanta.
Terence }. Pell, chief executive
officer of the Center for Individual
Rights, a conservative legal advo
cacy group that is involved in sev
eral of those cases, called Eden
field’s ruling a “devastating” defeat
for affirmative action.
Although binding only on the
University of Georgia, Pell said the
decision could directly affect the
fate of race-based admissions pro
grams at the University of Michi
gan and at its law school, and at the
University of Washington Law
School — programs under review
in lower courts in cases filed by
Pell’s group.
Theodore Shaw, associate direc
tor of the National Association for
the Advancement of Colored Peo
ple Legal Defense Fund, a liberal
civil rights advocacy group that rep
resents black students in most of the
pending cases, said Edenfield
“wants to close the door on affirma
tive action in higher education.”
Distributed by the Los Angeles Times
Washington Post News Service
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