A federal appeals court lifted an injunction yesterday that had delayed the implementation of Proposal 2 at the University of Michigan, Wayne State University, and Michigan State University. A three judge panel on the United States 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that federal law does not warrant providing an extension "in the absence of any likelihood of prevailing in invalidating this state initiative on federal grounds." The delay until July 1, 2007--sought by the universities to complete the current admissions cycle--was supported by Governor Jennifer Granholm and Attorney General Mike Cox. Cox was one of the only politicians in the 2006 election to openly support the passage of Proposal 2. The group By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), who has another lawsuit seeking to overturn Proposal 2, is considering appealing Friday's ruling to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in light of the fact that the ruling was based exclusively on written briefs without oral testimony.
The injunction was overturned as a result of a lawsuit filed by a conservative legal firm called the Center for Individual Rights on behalf of Eric Russell, a University of Michigan applicant. The Center for Individual Rights has a long history of working to eliminate the gains of the Civil Rights movement by attacking various affirmative action programs in the courts. This effort began with a 1992 challenge to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) policy that sought to balance gender in radio, defending California's anti-affirmative action Proposition 209 in the mid-1990s, and initiating in 1998 challenging the use of race in admissions at the University of Michigan in two cases--Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger--that would eventually go to the Supreme Court. The organization, founded to provided a conservative counterpoint to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), has intervened in a number of other cases and has worked to prevent college campuses from barring military recruiters, has defended professors accused of sexual harassment in light of "overly expansive harassment regulations," has filed lawsuits designed to challenge "political correctness" on college campuses, and has defended a CUNY professor who argued that African-Americans are less intelligent and less law-abiding than other races. The organization receives most of its funding from conservative and libertarian foundations and in the past received funding from the Pioneer Fund an organization that has heavily funded "research" aiming to show the alleged genetic inferiority of African-Americans.
