Black Enrollment Falls at UMich as Michigan Voters Reject Affirmative Action

This is a big deal that the Supreme Court is facing this week.  The NYTimes is in support of striking down the Michigan constitutional amendment.  Let me put the below statistic in a bit of CS Ed context.  As mentioned previously, UMich just graduated last year the first Black female CS PhD.  Barb’s analysis of AP CS stats includes Michigan.  Michigan has 9.8 million residents. It is 14.3% Black.  In the last six years, only 27 Black students have taken the AP CS exam, never more than 7 in any year.

A decade ago, the University of Michigan waged a successful U.S. Supreme Court fight to save affirmative action. Now Michigan is learning to live without it.

Three years after the court allowed race-based admissions, Michigan voters blocked them at state schools through a ballot initiative. The result is fewer black students crisscrossing the Diag, the wide space that cuts through the heart of the university’s Ann Arbor campus. Black enrollment is down about 30 percent at the undergraduate and law schools.

via Black Enrollment Falls as Michigan Rejects Affirmative Action – Bloomberg.