Dive Brief:
- A nonprofit group is asking for potential plaintiffs to come forward for lawsuits against three universities because their admissions policies consider the race of applicants.
- The Project on Fair Representation, backed by anti-affirmative-action crusader Edward Blum, has set up websites to recruit plaintiffs to sue Harvard University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
- Blum was the driving force behind Fisher v. University of Texas, the case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that universities that consider race in their admissions must first show that “available, workable race-neutral alternatives do not suffice.”
Dive Insight:
This appears to be an attempt by Blum to stir up some outrage among college and university applicants that don’t exist. Blum had predicted a wave of lawsuits in the wake of the Supreme Court decision, but those lawsuits haven’t materialized yet. It isn’t clear why the three universities have been targeted for lawsuits, though the New York Times quoted Blum as saying that they’ve been particularly resistant to the Fisher decision. The websites promise to pay all expenses for lawsuit plaintiffs.