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STATEMENT ISSUED BY LEE BOLLINGER (October 15, 1997)
In response to a lawsuit filed in the
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan on October
14, the University of Michigan released today the following statement by
U- M President Lee C. Bollinger: Ann Arbor -- Since its founding, the University
of Michigan has been committed to providing an education to the widest range
of students. Throughout our history we have included students from diverse
geographical, racial, ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. For almost 200
years, public universities have unlocked the doors to social and economic
opportunity to students from many different backgrounds, and we believe
it is absolutely essential that they continue to do so. Our mission and
core expertise is to create the best educational environment we can. We
do this in part through a diverse faculty and student body. Our admissions
policies are linked to these core values, especially our chief value: academic
excellence. We are supported in this judgment by virtually all of America's
leading universities, and we believe that our admissions policies are fully
consistent with existing legal principles. We use a variety of factors to
determine a student's admissibility to the University. These include, among
others:
- high school grade point
average
- the rigor of the curriculum
during high school years, especially the number of advanced placement
and international baccalaureate courses offered.
- standardized test scores
like SAT/ACT scores;
- geography (Michigan residency,
underrepresented counties in Michigan; underrepresented regions in the
United States);
- alumni relationships (parent;
sibling or grandparent);
- essay quality;
- personal achievement (state,
regional or national level);
- leadership and service (state,
regional and national level);
- socioeconomically disadvantaged
student or education;
- underrepresented racial
or ethnic minority identity or education;
- athletic ability.
Each of these factors can influence
a student's admissibility because they are considered to be characteristics
that contribute to the quality of the University and the diversity of the
student body. No one factor is determinative; our approach utilizes both
objective and subjective factors, treating the admission of students as
both an art and a science. The University has retained Wilmer, Cutler &
Pickering, a highly regarded international law firm, to represent it in
this lawsuit.
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