Location: The Heritage Foundation's Lehrman Auditorium
In 2006, Michigan voters banned affirmative action preferences
in public contracting, education, and employment. The
Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI) vote was preceded by years
of campaigning, legal maneuvers, media coverage, and public
debate. Ending Racial Preferences: The Michigan
Story relates what happened from the vantage point of Toward A
Fair Michigan (TAFM), a nonprofit organization that provided a
civic forum for the discussion of preferences. Editor Carol
M. Allen reproduces remarks delivered at a TAFM debate, along with
a compilation of pro and con responses by 14 experts to 50
questions regarding preferences. Ending Racial
Preferences offers a timely "inside look" into how TAFM
fostered dialogue by emphasizing education over indoctrination,
reason over rhetoric, and civil debate over protest.
Ending Racial Preferences: The Michigan Story tells how
determined citizens mobilized to end racial preferences despite the
opposition of every civic and political institution in the state.
The success of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative vindicates
Allen's belief in the ability of democratic institutions to
withstand the pressures of modern interest group politics.
- Terence J.
Pell, President, Center for Individual Rights
More About the Speakers
Carol M. Allen
Editor and Research Specialist,
Michigan State University
William B. Allen
Professor of Political Science,
Michigan State University
Barbara J. Grutter
Petitioner,
Grutter v. Bollinger
Hosted By
John Hilboldt
Director, Lectures & Seminars
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