Although the new guidelines do not condone using race as an outright factor in selection, they encourage using surrogate factors, such as socioeconomic status or geographic area, to draw a more diverse student body.

MSU administrators said Monday they would review the guidelines to look for areas to expand on the recruitment process, although they still see the university as constrained by a state-wide ban on affirmative action.

“We’ll take a look at it to see if there’s something that might be applicable to our efforts,” Director of the Office for Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives Paulette Granberry Russell said. “For the most part, we are still constricted by (Proposal) 2.”

The guidelines assert the importance of a diverse pool of students in the higher education system, saying it is the mission of universities to attract an eclectic group of students.

“The guidance announced today will aid educational institutions in their efforts to provide true equality of opportunity and fully realize the promise of Brown v. Board of Education,” U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement.

Currently, students can voluntarily submit racial status on MSU’s admission application, although it is not considered in the selection process, Granberry Russell said.

MSU already uses some the techniques outlined in the document to increase diversity, Granberry Russell said, including targeting certain geographic areas and socioeconomic status for recruitment.

The new push throws out older, stricter guidelines issued by former president George W. Bush, which caution universities to be hard-lined in not including race in admissions calculations.

“It really kind of pushes the boundary in saying, in some cases, race can be outcome determinative,” said Michael Lawrence, a constitutional law professor at MSU’s College of Law.

Still, it comes down to each individual university’s procedures, and how they interpret the guidelines, Lawrence said.

“If it’s given weight and looks too much like a quota, it will be struck down,” Lawrence said.
Michigan has been at the center of the ideological debate, which has divided views around the country.

In 2003, a U.S. Supreme Court case regarding admissions at the University of Michigan Law School upheld the practice affirmative action — weighing race directly in the admissions process — before it was banned altogether in Michigan by a ballot vote in 2006.

In July 2011, the U.S. Court of Appeals struck down the ban on the grounds it “unconstitutionally alters Michigan’s political structure by impermissibly burdening racial minorities.”

But because Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette appealed the decision, MSU still has to work around the ban, Granberry Russell said. The repeal has not officially been reinstated by any court.

University officials need to be careful in implementing any new policy, keeping the focus on merit, journalism sophomore Lindsey Pehrson said.

“Looking at academics should be the first priority because that is what we are here for,” Pehrson said.

Staff writer Brooks Laimbeer contributed to this report.