Posted on: Sunday, March 2, 2003

UH teacher joins case before Supreme Court

By Curtis Lum
Advertiser Staff Writer

A University of Hawai'i law-school professor has joined the legal fight before the U.S. Supreme Court in support of the University of Michigan's race-based admissions policy.

Eric Yamamoto was one of three attorneys who in February filed a friend-of-the-court brief that asks the high court to uphold the University of Michigan Law School's admissions policy. Grutter v. Bollinger will be argued before the court April 1 and an opinion is expected this summer.

In May 2002, a federal appeals court upheld the University of Michigan's policy that attempts to create a more diverse enrollment by considering the race and ethnicity of law-school applicants. Often, minority students with lower grades and tests scores have been admitted over more qualified candidates.

Three white students who were rejected by the school filed a lawsuit against the university, saying they were victims of discrimination. A trial court struck down the policy, but the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, by a 5-4 vote, upheld the constitutionality of the policy.

The case has become the focus of a nationwide controversy. Earlier this year, President Bush called for the race-based policy to be struck down.

But Yamamoto said such policies are needed to prevent the exclusion of minorities from colleges and universities.

"Although the petitioners claim that they desire a 'color-blind' admissions policy, they are actually advocating a policy that would perpetuate stark inequity and deepen social divisions," Yamamoto said.

"Our brief shows that there is a difference between a governmental policy that perpetuates existing group advantage on the basis of race, and one — like the one Michigan uses — that addresses the adverse effects of long-standing racial exclusion," he said.

The brief was filed by Yamamoto, Susan Serrano, a San Francisco attorney who graduated from the University of Hawai'i Law School, and Eva Paterson, executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights. Serrano also is project director of Equal Justice Society and co-founder of Justice Collective, a think tank based in Honolulu.

The three filed the amicus on behalf of the Coalition for Economic Equality, the Santa Clara University School of Law Center for Social Justice and Public Service, the California Association of Black Lawyers, the Charles Houston Bar Association and Justice Collective, and Justice Collective.