The Supreme Court declined today to rule on the complaint of Marco De Funis, Jr. that because of his race he had been denied admission to Washington University Law School as a result of the law school’s policy of easing admission requirements for minority group students. In a 5-4 unsigned opinion, the court ruled that the case was moot because De Funis will graduate from the law school next month. After he was refused admission in 1971, an order by Justice William O. Douglas had enabled him to enter and stay in the law school while the case was in court.
The majority opinion said that the issue of what De Funis called “reverse discrimination” was certain to come up again in the future, a point emphasized by the fact that civil rights organizations, Jewish and non-Jewish organizations, labor unions and other law schools had filed briefs as “friends of the court” on both sides of the case.
Some of the Jewish organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, the American Jewish Committee and the American Jewish Congress, Involved in the Supreme Court hearing had backed the stand of De Funis, a Sephardic Jew who is a Phi Beta Kappa and a graduate Magna Cum Laude at Washington’s undergraduate college.
However, the National Council of Jewish Women and the Joint Commission on Social Action of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and the Central Conference of American Rabbis supported the university’s policy. The Reform movement, however, was split on the issue. The Association of Reform Rabbis of New York issued a formal position reaffirming commitment to the principle of affirmative action for minorities but that such action “need not and must not result” in reverse discrimination, as De Funis had contended.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
