Minority enrollment up at University of Michigan Medical School

Enrollment of underrepresented minorities at the University of Michigan Medical School has jumped from 12% in 2003 to 21% in 2004. That's a direct result, some suggest, of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2003 decision in Grutter v. Bollinger, which upheld the use of race as one of several criteria for admissions at the University of Michigan's law school. Nationally, minorities considered underrepresented, such as blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and mainland Puerto Ricans, saw only a small uptick in representation. According to data gleaned from the Assn. of American Medical Colleges and calculated by AMNews, enrollment of such students was 9.3% in 2002 and 2003, creeping to 9.8% in 2004. The AAMC no longer defines underrepresented minorities as a group but provides statistics by ethnic and racial categories. The AAMC reported black enrollment in medical school increased 2.5% from 2003 to 2004, while the number of Hispanics starting medical school was up almost 8% for the same period. "The fear of Grutter was much worse than the reality of Grutter," as admissions committees hesitated to weigh race too heavily as they waited for the case to be decided, for fear of being sued, said Robert Jones, PhD, AAMC vice president for medical school services and studies. [more]