Racial Understanding

Racial Understanding. The main goal of critical mass in U-M is to bring more ethnic backgrounds in greater numbers into their school; The University hopes that this will make minorities feel more comfortable with their peers as well as help broaden student perspectives. By creating a critical mass, the U-M hopes to break down stereotypes within their school. As stated in the “Grutter V. Bollinger” case, the goal of admitting minority students is “...diminishing the force of such stereotypes is both a crucial part of the Law School’s mission, and one that it cannot accomplish with only token numbers of minority students”(O’Connor). With a larger amount of minority students attending the college, they would not be seen as different to their peers

With the worry of being judged for different viewpoints lessened, minority students feel more at ease when stating their viewpoints in class discussions. The U-M states that their interest is not to simply admit a percentage of minority students into its student body, but is to instead receive the educational benefits that diversity produces (O’Connor). The District Court emphasizes that the U-M’s admission policy “promotes ‘cross-racial understanding,’ helps to break down racial stereotypes, and ‘enables [students] to better understand persons of different races’” (O’Connor). With its policy, the U-M hopes to abolish racial stereotypes by giving their students more exposure to different races, which makes said races less foreign to them and gives races a better understanding of each other. With the implementation of affirmative action different ethnicities have a chance of understanding each other better and allows minority students to be more lively and excited in classroom discussions knowing that their peers have an understanding of their viewpoint. Professor Richard Lempert, who took part in drafting the U-M’s policy explains that “this language did not purport to remedy past discrimination, but rather to include students who may bring to the Law School a perspective different from that of members of groups which have not been the victims of such discrimination” (O’Connor). The U-M’s policy is not meant to rectify discrimination, but is instead meant to admit students that can bring a fresh view to their college that’s different from races that haven’t discriminated against. Affirmative action allows for more students with different perspective to be admitted, which allows for deeper classroom discussions. With minority students becoming more comfortable