What Ever Happened to Affirmative Action Opponent Clint Bolick?

A decade ago Clint Bolick was widely seen as the New Right’s point man in efforts to roll back affirmative action in higher education. But in recent years Bolick has kept a low profile on issues of concern to higher education. Instead Bolick turned his attention to the issue of school choice in K-12 education as president and general counsel of the Alliance for School Choice.

Now Bolick has resurfaced as the director of the Center for Constitutional Litigation at the Goldwater Institute in Phoenix. In this role Bolick recently issued a policy brief in support of the effort to place a public referendum on the November 2008 ballot in Arizona which would ban any racial preference in admissions, employment, or contracting at state-operated universities in the state.

In the Bolick policy paper he identifies programs at Arizona State University, the University of Arizona, and Northern Arizona University, which he believes would be unlawful should the initiative be enacted by voters this coming fall. Among these programs are the Minority Engineering Program, minority student recruitment programs, and the Bridges to Biomedical Careers program at Arizona State University. At the University of Arizona, Bolick says that the Minority Access to Research Careers, the librarian recruitment program, and the Minority Health Disparities Research Opportunities program would have to be eliminated or revised so that no racial group would have a participation preference.

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