The Historic Lawsuit Running through the University of Michigan
The University of Michigan and Michigan Law Review were sued over the summer. Its filing is another ongoing battle in the war against affirmative action.
The 2023 Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard case opened the door for those who believe they have been negatively impacted by affirmative action. This practice, first drafted in a 1961 executive order by President John Kennedy, was supposed to provide a remedy for historically underrepresented groups to gain access to and representation in higher education. However, detractors argue that affirmative action succeeds only in creating its own form of discrimination. They argue it inherently harms high-achieving applicants of Asian and white backgrounds, who need to unfairly compete against quotas for lower-achieving minority applicants. Faculty, Alumni, and Students Opposed to Racial Preference (FASORP) is a non-profit organization against affirmative action. It is suing the University of Michigan and the Michigan Law Review for discriminating against straight white men and Asians.
Since my last article on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), another relevant case was decided on June 5, 2025, by a unanimous Supreme Court. In Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services, Marlean Ames alleged that she was denied a promotion in favor of a lesbian colleague and later demoted to be replaced by a gay man. The lower courts, applying an older case law, denied her relief. They reasoned that, because Ames is a straight woman—belonging to a majority group rather than a traditionally recognized minority—she was required to meet a higher evidentiary burden than minorities bringing the same type of discrimination claim. In Ames, the Supreme Court reversed the lower courts’ rulings and sent the case back to rework it according to the Supreme Court’s key correction: discrimination under Title VII is discrimination, no distinctions. Even if the claimant is of a majority group, they do not need to meet a higher evidentiary burden than minorities.
In March, FASORP, an organization that “litigates against race and sex preferences in academia,” according to its website, sent an email to Michigan law school students to urge them to end preferences in how members and articles for the Michigan Law Review were selected. At the time, Kyle Logue, the Interim Michigan Law Dean, messaged the students, calling the email “threatening, harassing, and inappropriate” while simultaneously defending the legality of the process. Then, on behalf of FASORP, America First Legal, Jonathan Mitchell, and Ben Flowers sued the Michigan Law Review and the University of Michigan on June 18th, 2025. The lawsuit represents three unnamed white heterosexual male professors and an anonymous second-year student who cited discrimination based on their race. The professors, who submitted articles to the Michigan Law Review and were rejected, alleged that their non-minority status denied them the equal opportunity to publish articles. The student alleged that their status prevented them from being accepted as a member of the Michigan Law Review. America First Legal cites the enforcement of diversity quotas, which disadvantage white and Asian applicants by awarding “illegal racial preferences to minorities.”
On selecting the Law Review members, the lawsuit alleges that forty percent of the members are selected solely based on writing competition scores, whereas the remaining sixty percent are selected via an illegal “holistic review” that favors women, non-Asian minority, homosexual, and transgender groups. The “holistic review,” as stated in the lawsuit, has a personal statement section where the applicants can write up to 750 words, and the disclosure of race, gender identity, and sexual orientation is encouraged.
Similarly, the lawsuit claims that the Michigan Law Review’s process of article and citation selection illegally advantages marginalized identities. The lawsuit cites the Review’s Mission Statement, which emphasizes elevating “historically marginalized voices.” The Production Manual’s encouragement of using “source[s] that give voice to historically marginalized identities” is cited as evidence of discrimination against white male heterosexuals.
FASORP has unsuccessfully sued the Harvard (2018) and New York University (2023) Law Reviews on similar grounds. With its Michigan lawsuit, FASORP may have its best chance yet for a favorable ruling. The Supreme Court’s ruling in SFFA v. Harvard has already removed the long-standing constitutional basis for race-based admissions in higher education. Now, with its unanimous decision in Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services, the Court has shown that anti-discrimination protections apply equally to everyone, regardless of whether they belong to a majority or minority group. This precedent undermines any legal reasoning for siding with a heavier burden of proof on white, male, heterosexual, or cisgender plaintiffs.
Together, these rulings indicate that the judicial system is moving to embrace a straightforward, colorblind view of anti-discrimination law. This approach rejects any preference or penalty based on identity categories, even when proponents of such actions cite equity goals. If FASORP’s challenge to the Michigan Law Review succeeds, it could have significant effects not only on law reviews across the country but also on wider institutional DEI frameworks that depend on demographic factors in recruitment, evaluation, or publishing. Regardless of whether the court agrees with FASORP, the case shows a growing legal momentum—and social backlash—against race- and sex-conscious practices that were once seen as progressive or restorative. The outcome of Michigan’s summer legal dispute could establish a strong new national precedent in the legal landscape post-SFFA and Ames.
About the Author
Peter is a contributing writer for the legal section. He is an undergraduate at the University of Michigan interested in constitutional law.
