Background
The most recent legal challenge - a request for a short-term delay by three Michigan universities and an advocacy group (BAMN, see below) - was denied review by the United States Supreme Court on January 19, 2007. The request was an appeal from a December 29, 2006 Court of Appeals ruling overturning a December 19, 2006 district court "settlement" agreement that would have allowed a six-month delay in enforcement only as it related to university admissions. The universities requested this delay because they had substantially completed the admissions determinations for the upcoming enrollment period, which would result in potential unfair treatment for students applying after the Initiative was passed.
The subject of the proposal has been hotly debated, with the very definition of what it encompasses at the center of the controversy. Proponents argue that it bans programs in public hiring, public employment, and public education that "give preferential treatment to" or "discriminate against" individuals on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity, or national origin. Opponents argue that Proposal 2 bans all affirmative action programs in the operation of public employment, education, or contracting.
Proponents cite the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the "Equal Protection" clause of the 14th Amendment that forbids the United States or any state from denying "equal protection of the law" to any citizen as models for the proposal. It is a near copy of similar initiatives passed in California (Proposition 209) and Washington (Initiative 200).
During the early debate about the proposal shortly following the collection of signatures (508,282 submitted January 6, 2005), the Michigan Civil Rights Commission, a governmental body charged with investigating civil rights violations in the state of Michigan, concluded an investigation of MCRI and asserted that supporters of the MCRI had committed widespread and systematic racially-targeted fraud in their petition campaign to secure ballot access. The proponents of the initiative issued a multi-page refutation of the report, including a notation that it was never signed by the Commission and alleging misconduct by the Commission itself.
In September 2006, after opponents filed a federal lawsuit against the MCRI alleging fraud in the collection of petition signatures, a federal judge in Detroit found that some voter fraud had in fact taken place but denied an injunction to have the initiative barred.
Read more about this topic: Michigan Civil Rights Initiative
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