Link to prior SCOTUS case that Blum financed and narrowly lost, the Court (in a 4-3 opinion) holding that The University of Texas’ use of race as a consideration in the admissions process did not violate the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause:A part-time resident of Maine is leading a high-profile challenge to Harvard University’s admissions policy, alleging that it unfairly turns away qualified Asian-American students.
The case . . . is just the latest challenge to admissions policies that are at least partly based on race. A lawsuit filed in federal court this past summer is being pushed by Edward Blum, who . . . heads two foundations . . . .
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. . . Blum focuses on finding plaintiffs to challenge what some conservatives have called “reverse discrimination” – policies intended to redress decades of discrimination by favoring minority groups in college admissions or electoral districts, but which critics say harm whites in the process.
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He has set up two nonprofit foundations to help foot the bills for the lawsuits. One, the Project on Fair Representation, took in nearly $1.6 million in donations and grants in 2015, according to tax filings. Blum drew a salary of $110,000 as its executive director.
That organization’s most prominent ongoing case is a challenge to a California state law that would force a small town to set up electoral districts that would likely lead to the election of minorities to the city council. The foundation was also behind an Alabama case over the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which resulted in a 2013 Supreme Court ruling that struck down a major provision of that landmark legislation.
His other group is Students for Fair Admissions, which underwrites the suits challenging college admission processes. . . .
Blum said a key feature of that organization is that people who donate to the group are also signed up as members, which now number more than 22,000. That gives the foundation legal standing to challenge admission processes directly on behalf of its members without having to name a specific student in legal filings.
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His goal with the lawsuits, Blum said, is a truly race-blind society.
“Race should never be a consideration in whether you’re admitted to college, whether you get a job, whether you’re fired or promoted, whether you’re pulled over by a cop, whether you’re eliminated from a jury pool,” he said. “Race should never be an element to help an individual in life or harm an individual in life. That’s the basis of all this. Using race is unfair, unnecessary and unconstitutional.”
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Taking out race as a factor, he said, and substituting those more diverse backgrounds, would probably result in a less white student body.
The legal challenge to Harvard’s admission policies, Blum said, rests on the argument that the school excludes many Asian-American students who qualify for admission.
It’s similar to an approach Harvard used in the 1920s and ’30s, he said, when the school allegedly limited how many Jewish students could attend.
Fisher v. University of Texas
