The Woman Who Killed Affirmative Action — Twice

Jennifer Gratz: Here crusade against affirmative action has made her a darling of the right. Here she
appears on Fox News and the hosts asks viewers to tweet with the hash-tag "victimhood." (Screen
capture from YouTube video).

By MAGGIE SEVERNS
No one was more thrilled with Tuesday’s Supreme Court decision to uphold Michigan’s affirmative action ban than Jennifer Gratz.

Her name wasn’t on the Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action case — but it may as well have been. It was Gratz’s rejection from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1995 that set the court’s decision in motion.

Gratz is the woman who inspired two separate cases before the Supreme Court on affirmative action in higher education, ending with the justices’ 6-2 ruling Tuesday that upheld a constitutional amendment in Michigan that voters approved in 2006. It bans preferential treatment based on race, gender, ethnicity or national origin.

Gratz said she will continue keeping watch over the issue in the coming months.

“Nothing from our opposition would surprise me anymore,” Gratz said. “They are radical and they would use any means necessary.”

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