Last Thursday, a three judge panel of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled to stay District Court Judge Bernard Friedman"s segregationist anti-affirmative action decision in Grutter v. Bollinger. The University Law School is now free to use its old affirmative action plan in admitting this year"s incoming class. The appeals court"s swift and decisive rebuke of Friedman comes a week after 3,000 University students answered the call of BAMN and Rev. Jesse Jackson and rallied to denounce Judge Friedman"s racist decision. Our victory at the appeals court reflects the growing strength of our new civil rights movement and the increased political polarization in the courts and in our society.

Friedman"s sweeping anti-affirmative action decision served as a wake-up call for this campus and for this nation. His ruling made clear he did not give a damn about the facts, the law or the rights of minorities.

His decision mirrored the ideological result-oriented method used by the right wing of the Supreme Court when it stopped the Florida presidential ballot recount last December. Both decisions speak volumes about the racism, cynicism and arrogance of the increasingly emboldened right wing of the federal judiciary. This section of the federal courts shares the ideology of and seeks to further the policies of the right wing of the Republican Party. They do not feel accountable to or bound by the pro-integrationist sentiment of the vast majority of Americans. We cannot allow the Supreme Court to get away with a Friedman-style ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger.

Getting a majority of the Supreme Court to rule for affirmative action requires the assertion of a powerful social movement capable of convincing at least some right wing justices that ruling for segregation will provoke an angry backlash and will sharply diminish the authority of the courts and the law. Only a new militant, mass, integrated, youth-led civil rights movement can galvanize the forces needed to achieve this victory.

Throughout the last year and a half, students and youth in particular, but also large segments of the black community, have made clear that we are prepared to defend affirmative action and integration. Large, loosely connected demonstrations for affirmative action and integration in Florida, South Carolina, California and here in Michigan have laid the foundation for a powerful new national movement for equality. A national march on Washington can make the courts and the nation conscious of the determination, strength, breadth and demands of the new civil rights movement. The 1963 March on Washington led by Martin Luther King united labor and civil rights, old and young, secular and religious, and moderate and radical leaders of the last civil rights movement in common struggle.

This march signaled to our nation that the fight against segregation and for equality would extend to every corner of this nation. Our defense of affirmative action and integration requires that we build a national march on Washington now based on this model.

BAMN and the Rev. Jesse Jackson have issued a joint call for a national conference of students and youth leaders of the growing new civil rights movement to be held in Ann Arbor from June 1-3, 2001. This conference will be an important step forward in building a national movement in defense of affirmative action, integration, and equality. It will begin planning the national march on Washington.

All those interested in building for the national conference are invited to attend a planning meeting tonight at 7 p.m. in the Wolverine Room of the Michigan Union.

Agnes Aleobua

Jessica Curtin

Aleobua, an LSA sophomore and Curtin, a Rackham student and Michigan Student Assembly representative are both members of the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action By Any Means Necessary.