AAMC Reporter: September 2006

Michigan Ballot Measure Targets Affirmative Action

This November, Michigan voters will determine whether to adopt a proposed ballot measure that would effectively ban affirmative action policies in state institutions, including medical schools.

If passed, the measure, called the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI), would, according to initiative language, amend the state constitution to "ban affirmative action programs that give preferential treatment to groups or individuals based on their race, gender, color, ethnicity, or national origin for public employment, education, or contracting purposes."

While supporters of the MCRI, including a coalition of the same name, claim the measure could potentially result in an increase in programs that benefit everyone regardless of race, opponents say it would mean, among other things, fewer minority applicants being admitted to state higher education institutions and, ultimately, fewer practicing physicians among groups already statistically underrepresented in medicine.

"We oppose ballot initiatives of this sort because we view them as anti-civil rights ballot measures rather than civil rights ballot measures," said Charles Terrell, Ed.D., vice president of the AAMC Division of Diversity Policy and Programs. "To lose this battle in Michigan would be a terrible blow for us."

With MCRI on the docket, Michigan continues to be a political battleground for affirmative action. In 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld affirmative action admissions policies at the University of Michigan Law School in Grutter v. Bollinger and ruled against what the justices viewed as an overly mechanistic race-based "point system" for undergraduate university admissions in Gratz v. Bollinger.

"We certainly got a boost with the court decision in the Michigan cases," Terrell said. "But I think [MCRI] would cost us an extraordinary loss in momentum."

MCRI critics, which include state political leaders in both major parties as well as business and union leaders, are concerned about the negative effects of eliminating affirmative action outright. By effectively barring practices that facilitate the admission of a diverse student body, the critics say, the proposed law would result in less diversity among students and, eventually, certain sectors of the workforce. Opponents also cite two examples of similar anti-affirmative action measures enacted in 1996 and 1998 in California and Washington state, respectively, as having had detrimental effects on minority university enrollment. Immediately following the passage of these measures, both states suffered decreases in minority enrollment in state higher education programs, employment, and contracting, according to the Leadership Council on Civil Rights.

Daniel G. Remick, M.D., who until August served as assistant dean for admissions and professor and director of autopsy service at the University of Michigan Medical School and is now pathology chair at Boston University School of Medicine, opposes the MCRI.

"The data are pretty clear," he said. "Having a diverse learning environment makes for a better learning environment. If the law says 'no, you can't take the factor of race, you can't take the factor of gender into consideration to make the best learning environment,' we think that's detrimental to education and to medical care."

Jennifer Gratz, the plaintiff in Gratz v. Bollinger, leads the MCRI, and Ward Connerly, a former member of the University of California Board of Regents and leader of the anti-affirmative action campaigns in California and Washington, is listed as a "mentor" on the MCRI Web site. The MCRI deemed "successful" the efforts in California and Washington, claiming recently increased admissions rates of "underrepresented minorities" in those states and higher graduation rates for black students.

"Since when is it equal to treat people unequally based on race, to have different standards for people of different races to get into undergraduate school or medical school," Gratz said. "That's not equal opportunity. That guarantees unequal opportunity."

Terrell, however, disagreed with that assessment. "The supposition that ending affirmative action will somehow result in equal opportunity doesn't square with this country's track record for access to education and health care," he said. "It's because we don't have a level playing field that affirmative action is so important."

In California and Washington, although the percentages have since increased in some instances, they still are low. According to the AAMC, of 1,047 matriculants to California medical schools in 2005, only 39 were African-American and 121 were Latino or Hispanic. At the University of Washington, 18 students from underrepresented minorities enrolled in 1996 and only seven in 2001. Concern about undergraduate enrollment levels recently spurred a University of California Board of Regents decision to study the effects of 10 years without affirmative action.

"These measures have had a chilling effect on underrepresented access to higher education in Washington and in California," Terrell said.

According to statistics in the AAMC publication "Minorities in Medical Education: Facts and Figures 2005," physicians from minority groups are more likely to work with minority patients, who, historically, have been medically underserved. More than half of African-American medical school graduates surveyed said they planned to work in an underserved area, compared with less than one-fifth of Caucasian graduates.

— By Anne Blank, Special to the Reporter

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