The University of Michigan Affirmative Action Cases and Public Personnel Decisions

Abstract

In Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), the United States Supreme Court held that the University ofMichigan Law School’s use of race preferences in admissions did not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Specifically, the Court ruled, the law school’s purported goal in using the preferences, namely the promotion of diversity, is a compelling state interest, and the means by which the law school used race are narrowly tailored to advance diversity. Since public personnelmanagers have long sought to use race preferences in employment decision-making, Grutter may appear to provide constitutional permission for such practices. Nonetheless, key differences between the public university admissions and public employment contexts counsel against this assumption.