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![handle is hein.civil/uscdgy0001 and id is 1 raw text is:
UNITED STATES COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS
624 NINTH STREET, NW, WASHINGTON, DC 20425 WWW.USCCR.GOV
MICHAEL YAKI
COMMISSIONER
July 6, 2005
The Honorable Margaret Spellings
Secretary of Education
U.S. Department of Education
Washington, DC 20202
Re: Letter from U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
Dear Secretary Spellings:
I am writing to you in my capacity as an individual member of the U.S. Commission on Civil
Rights in response to the letter sent by five members of the Commission on July 5, 2005. I
strongly disagree with the letter sent by my colleagues. Furthermore, I join with the NAACP
Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) in asking that you and your staff meet with the
LDF to respond to the concerns enunciated in their Closing the Gap report.
From the very first Brown decision, the Supreme Court has recognized that integration of
educational facilities is essential to equal educational opportunity. The Supreme Court in
Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003), continued to hold that student body diversity is a
compelling state interest that can justify using race in university admissions. Grutter recognizes
the need for, and gives deference and flexibility to, colleges and universities to use a broad array
of tools, including race-conscious policies, to take steps to close these gaps. In addition, as the
LDF report notes, outside the context of university admissions decisions involved in Gratz, even
race-exclusive support programs may be permissible under the logic of Grutter; these programs
play a critical role in opening the doors to higher education for minorities and in keeping those
doors open. The Department of Education (DOE), especially its Office of Civil Rights
(OCR), should be dedicated to ensuring that our colleges and universities are doing the
maximum - not the minimum - in opening the doors of admission to the widest, broadest, and
most diverse student body possible.
While my colleagues point out limitations in the Court's holdings in the Michigan cases, none
of the points raised by my colleagues address the key fundamental underpinning of Grutter - that
the use of diversity goals in university admissions processes is constitutionally permissible and
that relying on ethnicity and race as a plus factor in meeting a diversity goal is also
constitutionally permissible. Indeed, the Court found that [b]y virtue of our Nation's struggle
with racial inequality, such students are both likely to have experiences of particular importance.
... and less likely to be admitted in meaningful numbers on criteria that ignore those
experiences.
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