Wednesday, April 23, 2003

No Comment

Bush 01/15/03

THE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon. The Supreme Court will soon hear arguments in a case about admission policies and student diversity in public universities. I strongly support diversity of all kinds, including racial diversity in higher education. But the method used by the University of Michigan to achieve this important goal is fundamentally flawed.

At their core, the Michigan policies amount to a quota system that unfairly rewards or penalizes perspective students, based solely on their race. So, tomorrow my administration will file a brief with the court arguing that the University of Michigan's admissions policies, which award students a significant number of extra points based solely on their race, and establishes numerical targets for incoming minority students, are unconstitutional.

Ari Fleischer, Today:

Q Just one other thing, if I can. Does the President know more about what Senator Santorum said? Does he have any feelings about his comments? Do they think they were inappropriate or appropriate?

MR. FLEISCHER: I haven't personally talked to the President about it, so I don't have anything direct from the President to share.

Q So you all are just making a conscious decision to just keep clear of this one?

MR. FLEISCHER: Let me put it to you this way. The President typically never does comment on anything involving a Supreme Court case, a Supreme Court ruling or a Supreme Court finding -- typically. And in this case, we also have no comment on anything that involves any one person's interpretation of the legalities of an issue that may be considered before the Court.


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