8 Nov, 2006
Election results might affect higher education
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General, Pre-Law Discussions, Prelaw News 
I hope you voted yesterday. And I hope you didn't stay up so late last night watching election results that you forgot to set your alarm and overslept this morning. Not that I am speaking from experience....
Anyway, you may not hear quite as much about these issues on the news, but there some changes as a result of the voting last night that could affect you from the standpoint of a person looking to continue his/her education.
Insidehighered.com has an analysis of how the apparent congressional shift in power might affect higher education.
- Democrats . . . have vowed to aggressively push an agenda that includes helping students and families better afford college, an effort that higher education officials (and of course student groups) very much support.
They do note the unpredictability of the power shift's future effects, but it seems at least an increase in spending on student financial aid is on the minds of a Democrat-controlled Congress.
And in an apparent backlash of the US Supreme Court's decision allowing the University of Michigan Law School to consider race/ethnicity in its admissions, Michigan voters approved a state constitutional amendment to ban instances of affirmative action in state schools and elsewhere.
If this is confusing, the US Supreme Court decision simply says that a school admissions are allowed to use certain factors such as race and ethnicity in the name of diversity should they choose. That Supreme Court decision, however, does not stop a state or a school from choosing to not use or forbidding the use of racial/ethnic factors in the admission process.
This is the third state amendment of its kind. Are other states likely to follow? How will this affect the state law schools in Michigan?
Update from Volokh Conspiracy: University of Michigan seems none to happy about the decision of Michigan voters and is exploring legal action.