University students gathered yesterday evening to discuss the relevance of affirmative action and the potential effects the University of Michigan's race-based admissions case could have on the University.
Shanta Driver spoke in favor of retaining affirmative action programs last night. She is the national coordinator of United for Equality and Affirmative Action and the national director of the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and To Fight for Equality by Any Means Necessary.
The UEAA is named as a legal-intervenor in the case against Michigan, which will be heard by the Supreme Court in April.
Driver urged members of the audience to travel to Washington D.C. for the hearing.
The Supreme Court's decision will affect the racial make up of institutions such as the University, Driver said.
"The outcome will determine whether institutions such as the University of Virginia will remain integrated or if we will move back to dark days," she said.
Diversity in colleges and universities will lessen dramatically if the Supreme Court rules against Michigan, Driver said.
"Michigan has said their black and Latino enrollment will drop by 73 percent in their law school and 75 percent in their undergraduate first-year class," she said.
Driver criticized the University for not filing an amicus brief in support of Michigan, as other institutions have.
"Why didn't the University of Virginia say we want to stand on the side of progress?" Driver asked.
At the gathering, Driver confronted University President John T. Casteen III, who was in attendance, on this issue.
Virginia's colleges and universities are forbidden from filing such briefs by state law, Casteen said. The University, however, is a signatory on amicus briefs filed on Michigan's behalf by the College Board and the American Council of Higher Education, Casteen noted.
Corey Walker, director of the Center for the Study of Local Knowledge for the Carter G. Woodson Institute, said students should ask individual members of the faculty where they stand on affirmative action and should urge the faculty senate to pass a resolution in support of race-based admissions criterion.
Elite colleges and universities produce leaders in American society, Walker said. Therefore, maintaining a diverse student body is essential to "challenging the ways of thinking that have led to the oppression of minorities," he said.
"This is your generation's defining moment," he added.
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