Earlier today, the United States Supreme Court voted 6-2, with Justice Elena Kagan abstaining, to uphold a controversial ban on affirmative action policies in the college admissions process.
The decision comes after years-long contention over a 2006 Michigan ballot initiative, Proposition 2, which banned the use of affirmative action in higher education. Voters approved the measure after the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decision (6-3) in Gratz v. Bollinger which banned the use of such policies at the University of Michigan. The news is a blow to advocates who claim colleges such as U-M have had dwindling minority enrollment.
Yet today’s ruling may hit home the most for a 17-year-old Detroit high-schooler inundated with the weight of the national spotlight.
Her name is Brooke Kimbrough, 17-year-old University Preparatory Academy senior, who applied to the university with accomplishments including a 3.6 GPA, a score of 23/36 on the ACT standardized test and a national tournament win in late February as part of her high school’s debate team. Having gone national for the second year in a row, Kimbrough and partner Rayvon Dean were the first African-Americans to win the University of California-Berkley tournament, winning 11 of 13 rounds and pushing their school to rank seventh in the United States.
Not one to shy from a challenge, the Motor City senior says she’s taking a stand against the University of Michigan not just for her, but the hundreds of other minority applicants to the “Harvard of the Midwest” she views as under-represented.
“People have their lens focused on me and it should be on the virtual absence of brown, red and black bodies on the campus,” Kimbrough said to theGrio.
Kimbrough staged a rally last Tuesday at her high school with Daisha Martin, president of the Black Student Union at Birmingham Seaholm High School, who was also rejected. The two invited the news media to the scene as they carried bullhorns and posters, determined to change their fate. Kimbrough plans to document and publicize rejection letters from other minorities and thinks the questions that have since been raised are the wrong ones.
“Most people are answering the question of whether there is an issue of under-representation of blacks, Latinos, Native Americans and Southeast Asians in most public universities; thats a given!” she said. “The facts are non-negotiable, what you should be asking is what’s the best option to address the racial apartheid of our student demographic.”
According to publicly available demographic data from the main campus of the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, 5 percent of the incoming freshmen class in Fall 2013 identified as African-American, compared to 69.2 percent who identified as white, 14.8 percent as Asian-American, 4.5 percent as Hispanic American, 1.2 percent as Native American or Pacific Islander, 8.3 percent as other designations, and 4 percent listed as as non-resident aliens.
Comparatively, the 2010 United States Census Bureau lists the percentage of African-Americans living in the state of Michigan to be 14.2 percent versus figures of 76.6 percent listed as white, 2.4 percent as Asian-American, 4.4 percent as Hispanics or Latinos, 2.2 percent as Native American, Pacific Islander or other designations, and multiracial individuals at 2.3 percent.
The elite status of U-M as an intellectual powerhouse has not gone unnoticed, with many critics of Ms. Kimbrough stating that her academic prowess is below that of the typical freshman admitted to the University last year. The average freshmen on the campus earned a GPA of 3.8-3.9 and an ACT score of 28-32.
Supporters note that Kimbrough was a well-rounded student serving as president of her high school’s National Honor Society chapter and a participant in a youth leadership program at Alternatives for Girls, a Detroit non profit, in addition to her aforementioned accomplishments. U-M insists it possesses a comprehensive and holistic admissions process despite the ban on affirmative action.
“This woman is standing up for group rights and asking for preferential treatment based on race while others are discriminated against, she wants unequal treatment,” said Jennifer Gratz in a comment on the Detroit News website. “Ms. Kimbrough is fighting because she wasn’t accepted; I fought because of discrimination in the admissions process, a major difference.”
Gratz was a plaintiff in the 2003 case Gratz v. Bollinger, and derides comparisons between her and Ms. Kimbrough. Gratz, who is white, was denied admission to the university in favor of under-represented minorities who were accepted, in many cases, with scores below that of her own. Three years after the highest court in the land agreed that the University of Michigan acted unconstitutionally and in a discriminatory manner, she and other proponents successfully pushed for Proposition 2.
Today she is co-founder and CEO of XIV Foundation, an organization named after the 14th Amendment which fights against the use such policies in education, employment, and contracting. Now 37, Gratz has challenged Kimbrough, twenty years her junior, to a debate. Kimbrough, however, is skeptical.
“This wasn’t ever supposed to be about me or my story but everyone loves to see a good spectacle, right?” she said.”I would prefer to talk to people and tell them exactly what I think on some type of common ground, rather than push forward someone else’s agenda.”
While she remains undecided, she notes that Gratz has been studying this for “as long as she’s been alive, and that’s a hell of a leg up.” Despite her youth, she says that knows what she is doing and how to avoid being portrayed as the angry black woman.
“Being black and female in America for 17 years prepared me for the hatred and backlash I received, but there was also a lot of good, particularly from the debate community,” Kimbrough said.
Kate Stenvig, University of Michigan advisor to the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality by Any Means Necessary (B.A.M.N.), has come to support Ms. Kimbrough and has pledged the full weight of the organization behind her. In addition, both Driver and Gratz have agreed to suggestions that a representative from the civil rights group be on hand to assist and/or supplement Kimbrough if a debate is to occur.
Meanwhile, as Americans on both sides sound off, declining minority enrollment numbers at colleges like the University of Michigan is not up for debate.
According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, undergraduate enrollment of African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans and Native Americans at U-M has dropped significantly over the last decade. These three ethnic groups have also faced declining enrollment numbers at University of California campuses in Los Angeles and Berkeley. This has come after the 1996 ballot-initiative, Proposition 209, a similar state-approved ban on affirmative action.
“It is curious to say that a law that bars a state from discriminating on the basis of race or sex violates the Equal Protection Clause by discriminating on the basis of race,” said Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, a strong proponent of Proposition 2, in a legal brief on the case.
“There is no authority in the Constitution of the United States or in this Court’s precedents for the Judiciary to set aside Michigan laws that commit this policy determination to the voters,” said Justice Anthony Kennedy on the ruling.
Shanta Driver, National Chair of By Any Means Necessary, begs to differ.
“Everyone knows that there is the ability to stop unequal representation in this country,” said Driver. “As America becomes a majority-minority nation the Supreme Court has decided to defend privilege and abandon the fight for equality and the rights of opportunity for black, Latino-Latino, Native American, and other minority citizens of this nation.”
Driver called today’s ruling “racist” and successfully advocated for the 2003 Supreme Court Grutter v. Bollinger decision (5-4) which supported affirmative action policies at the University of Michigan Law School. Driver believes that any college that uses a holistic approach to admissions should have a criteria that looks at the real-world obstacles and total life experience that blacks, Latino-Latinos, and African-Americans have to overcome to be at the top of their graduating class.
Officials from U-M have since told the Associated Press that a series of meetings between administrators and the Black Student Union have produced several steps intended to increase the percentage of black students. These steps include encouragement, increased off-campus transportation and improving the Trotter Multicultural Center. Tuesday’s rally came two months after a sit-in at the undergraduate library in February, which did not receive media attention.
“I think that me being rejected gave a platform for the conversation of the declining black, Latino/a, Southeast Asian, Native American, etc. populations in education to be a big issue,” Kimbrough said.
The experience has dissuaded her from pursuing admission to the university she feels she deserves to get into, but says she’s not “some noble character” and is now inspired. Together with B.A.M.N., Kimbrough is glad she got the ball rolling on racial and class bias and feels their actions help reinvigorate movements against oppression she thought were dying out.
“I have awakened in me [an enthusiasm] that I will never stop fighting for,” Kimbrough said. “I along, with countless minority students, have already won; the conversation is being forced on the public.”