Ed Dept.'s Civil Rights Chief Signals New Approach to Race

The Education Department's Office for Civil Rights is reviewing its approach to complaints of anti-Semitism and its guidance to colleges on race-conscious admission policies and gender equity in athletics, the office's chief, Russlynn H. Ali, told The Chronicle this month in an exclusive interview.

The Chronicle story also reports:

The Obama administration's intent to be much more supportive of race-conscious admissions than the Bush administration became clear last month, when top lawyers from the Education and Justice Departments joined in submitting a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of the University of Texas at Austin in a lawsuit pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The brief reinforces the university's defense of its race-conscious admission policies.

Whereas the Bush administration had sided against the University of Michigan in a Supreme Court case challenging that institution's consideration of applicants' race, the brief the Obama administration lawyers filed last month strongly endorsed Texas's argument that only race-conscious admissions policies would provide it with sufficient levels of diversity to reap the educational benefits it sought.

"In view of the importance of diversity in educational institutions," the brief said, "the United States, through the Departments of Education and Justice, supports the efforts of school systems and postsecondary educational institutions that wish to develop admission polices that endeavor to achieve the educational benefits of diversity" in accordance with the Supreme Court ruling upholding Michigan's consideration of race.

Affirmative-Action Scholars Denied Access to California Bar Data

A California state judge has rejected a bid by two researchers examining affirmative action to gain access to California Bar Association data on the long-term success of law-school graduates.

As reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Judge Curtis E.A. Karnow of the California Superior Court for San Francisco County ruled last month that the state bar is not legally obliged to release the data sought by Richard H. Sander, a professor of law at the University of California at Los Angeles, and Joe Hicks, a former governor of the California state bar. The judge held that the researchers' argument for access to the data under public-records laws relied on a definition of "public document" that was overly broad, and could be interpreted as covering judges' rough notes, grand-jury transcripts, and other documents that the courts have long held to be exempt.