From 1997-2003, BAMN was a co-defendant in the University of Michigan Law School affirmative action case, Grutter v. Bollinger. Together with its nonprofit co-defendant, United for Equality and Affirmative Action Legal Defense Fund (UEAALDF), BAMN presented the broadest and deepest defense of affirmative action ever made in a court of law, exposing the separate and unequal quality of K-12 education, the bias inherent in the standardized tests, the effects of hostile racial climate on the academic performance of minority students, the failure of all attempted alternatives to affirmative action and the current impact and significance of race and racism in American society. Relying on many of the arguments presented by the student defendants, the Supreme Court, in a historic victory for affirmative action and integration, ruled to uphold affirmative action at the University of Michigan Law School.
BAMN spearheaded the organizing of the 50,000 person March on Washington to Defend Affirmative Action and Save Brown v Board of Education on April 1, 2003. This march was the most integrated march ever in the history of this nation.
BAMN was also active in the successful campaign to defeat Proposition 54, a
ballot measure which would have outlawed the collection of racial data in
California.
We are currently organizing a national campaign to defeat Ward Connerly's attempt to reverse the civil rights movement's victory in Grutter v Bollinger through state-wide anti-affirmative action legislative and ballot initiatives.
Building on the recent Supreme Court victory, BAMN and UEAALDF are also developing a legal challenge to California's anti-affirmative action constitutional amendment, Proposition 209.
BAMN is sponsoring a National March on Washington to Realize the Promise of Brown v. Board of Education on May 15th, 2004. This march is being organized to mobilize the nation to defeat all attempts to ban affirmative action, to resist attacks on public education and to revitalize the fight for school integration on the 50th
Anniversary of the Brown ruling.
