Coalition Brief in Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, No. 12-682

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

A. The issues at stake in this case

This case is about the protection of the political rights and educational futures of black, Latina/o and other minority residents under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment during the period of the greatest demographic change that the nation has ever faced.

On the one hand, Article 1, Section 26 of the Michigan State Constitution (“Proposal 2”) denies to racial minorities the right to even propose that the governing boards of Michigan’s public universities adopt the exact affirmative action plan that this Court held was the only way that significant numbers of black, Latina/o and other minority students could be admitted to the University of Michigan’s Law School and other schools like it. Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003).

On the other hand, in two profound and prescient decisions, this Court rightly found in the Fourteenth Amendment a mighty shield protecting the democratic rights of black, Latina/o and other minority citizens against attempts by a would-be dominant white majority to prevent minority citizens from obtaining protection against de facto segregation and inequality. Hunter v. Erickson, 393 U.S. 385 (1969) and Washington v. Seattle School District No. 1, 458 U.S. 457 (1982).