Introduction to Our Blog

"The contractor will not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, creed, color, or national origin. The contractor will take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin..."

      John F. Kennedy

We are a group of three students in Philosophy 162: University of Michigan - A Moral Institution? led by Professor G. Krentz and Jeremy Lent. In this blog and class project, we aim to present perspectives on the morality of affirmative action and moral perspectives regarding issues of diversity at University of Michigan.
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Some History of Affirmative Action at UM:
While there is a deep history regarding this topic, we will begin our blog talking about the research on the history of affirmative action in higher education conducted by Lisa Stulberg and Anthony Chen. In their paper, they proposed that these policies originated in the 1960's.

Though it is commonly thought that affirmative action came from a rise of student protests, this study has found that large public schools began the policies during the early 60's and the civil rights movement. University of Michigan administrators began programs aimed at underprivileged racial minorities coming from high schools that did not typically prepare them for admittance. One form of this was the Opportunity Awards Program.

A faculty advisory board was assembled to revise the admissions process at Michigan. They determined that the current method should reform. This was controversial among UofM faculty, mostly regarding the standards of the quality of education. President Harlan Hatcher, the man whom our graduate library is named after, wrote that although the students weren't prepared to compete with current undergraduates, he was certain that they had the potential to do the work needed once UofM corrected the difference in training.

[President Hatcher] argued that there was evidence that such students were capable of doing the academic work at Michigan. Their failure to meet all of the admissions requirements was due less to intellectual ability than a persistent lack of economic resources. At the same time, Heyns also felt morally compelled to act. As a public university, Michigan was obligated “to participate appropriately in the national movement to improve the status of the American Negro in our society” (Heyns to  53 Maynard, April 7, 1964, Folder: Negro, Re 1963-4, Provost Papers). Though the devastating riot in Detroit was three years away and student uprisings would not convulse campus until a year thereafter, Heyns and Michigan moved to establish affirmative action in 1964. 
(Stulberg and Chen, 2007) 

One of the most well-known instigators of discussion on Affirmative Action was Barbara Grutter's lawsuit against the University of Michigan Law School that went to the Supreme Court in 2003. The court held that diversity was a compelling interest in higher education and race was a factor that can be considered for colleges wanting to achieve diversity.

However, Jennifer Gratz was another case that was heard in conjunction with the Grutter case. The court, in the end, held that UM was using an unconstitutional quota system in the case of Gratz and that a point-base admission system was unconstitutional.

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Throughout our blog, we will offer perspectives from Mill, Kant, and other philosophers we have read on. We will also attempt to cover different viewpoints on affirmative action from representatives of student organizations. Finally, we will blog about our own thoughts and small experiments.