In a one-paragraph dissent, Rogers wrote "Under the majority opinion, it is hard to see how any level of state government that has a subordinate level can pass a no-race-preference regulation, ordinance, or law."
Sutton in his dissent wrote, "A first premise for resolving this case is, and must be, that a State does not deny equal treatment by mandating it." Sutton added that there's "nothing unusual" an equal-protection guarantee in a constitution. "That is where individual-liberty guarantees often go, and that, after all, is where the national framers placed the federal counterpart," he wrote.
Finally, Griffin wrote in his dissent that "today's decision is the antithesis of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.…In my view, racial discrimination and racial preference are synonymous."
Judges Raymond Kethledge and David McKeague did not participate in the case decisions.
John Bursch, the Michigan solicitor general, argued for the Attorney General's Office. Mark Rosenbaum, chief counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, argued for appellee Chase Cantrell.
Stephanie Setterington, a partner at Varnum in Grand Rapids, Mich., who argued for Wayne State University, declined to comment without her client's permission.
Charles Cooper, chairman of Washington-based Cooper & Kirk who argued for would-be intervenor Eric Russell, could not be reached for comment. Leonard Niehoff, an Ann Arbor, Mich., of counsel to Detroit's Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn who argued for the University of Michigan and Michigan State University, also could not be reached.
Sheri Qualters writes for The National Law Journal, a Daily Report affiliate.
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