Program seen as not defensible in court.
By: Jeff Milgram
Princeton will stop using a minority-only admission policy for a summer program after this year, said Robert K. Durkee, the university’s vice president for public affairs.
Mr. Durkee said the race-based admission policy could not be defended successfully in court.
"It will go forward this summer," Mr. Durkee said. The university has not decided if the seven-week program, the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs Junior Summer Institute, will be continued next year. If it does, the admissions policy will be changed.
For 18 years, the program has been open to college juniors from around the country with the goal of attracting them to graduate study in public and international affairs, a field in which minority students are underrepresented, Mr. Durkee said.
"The program has been very successful (enrolling roughly 30 students a year) and the university has taken great pride in the accomplishments of those who have participated," Mr. Durkee said.
Since 1983, 48 percent of all Woodrow Wilson School minority graduate students had taken part in the Summer Institute or a summer program at some other institution of higher education, school spokesman Steven Barnes said.
The decision to look at the program comes amid a challenge to the affirmative action admission policies of the University of Michigan that is now before the U.S. Supreme Court. Three white students argue that Michigan’s undergraduate and law school admissions policies violate their equal protection rights under the U.S. Constitution.
Princeton may join Harvard in filing an amicus brief supporting Michigan, but the final decision has not yet been made, Mr. Durkee said.
The issue over the admissions policy began when a watchdog group that questions the constitutionality of college programs notified the university that the institute’s admissions policy could be illegal, Mr. Durkee said. The university has not been sued.
This is the only university program that uses race as an admission factor, Mr. Durkee said.
"In the current legal climate the university does not believe that it can continue to offer a program in which admission is restricted by race," Mr. Durkee said.
The program was founded in 1985 with Ford Foundation funds. Five years later, the foundation dropped the funding, saying the admissions policy could not withstand a legal challenge, Mr. Durkee said.
At the time, Princeton felt the institute could be legally defended.
But the situation is different now and the university’s outside lawyers looked at the admissions policy and said it could not be successfully defended.
"For compelling educational reasons, Princeton has been and remains committed to having a diverse student body at the undergraduate and graduate levels, and to taking affirmative steps to enable and encourage students from a broad range of backgrounds to study at Princeton," Mr. Durkee said.
"I also remain committed to the fundamental goal of the Summer Institute, which is to encourage students from backgrounds not traditionally well represented to pursue graduate work and careers in public and international affairs," he said.
"If this program is continued beyond the summer of 2003, the admission criteria for the program will be changed. Alternatively, the university may develop other approaches to achieve the aims of the program," Mr. Durkee said.
Once the Supreme Court has ruled on the Michigan cases, the university will be in a position to know how to proceed beyond this summer, Mr. Durkee said.

