BAMN Members Protest UM Admission Policies
ANN ARBOR (WWJ) - Things got loud inside the University of Michigan's admissions office on Thursday... it was part of a protest over the lack of minorities admitted to the school.
The campus march and rally coming just days after the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the state's ban on Affirmative Action in college admissions. The protest was led by the group BAMN, By Any Means Necessary, with students marching from the Diag to the Admissions Office where about three dozen people crammed inside chanting, "Whose School, Our School!"
Members of BAMN chanted until someone from U-of-M administration showed up to talk to them. They say dozens of qualified minority students were denied admission unfairly.
"Given what happened at the Supreme Court, it is incumbent on you to admit Mario [Martinez] and other students like him, to accept their appeals and bring them onto this campus because they deserve to be here," says attorney Shanta Driver, a BAMN member.
BAMN highlighted the story of Detroit's Cass Technical High School senior Mario Martinez, who was rejected from the university.
"Our plan is to stay here to give the application to whoever it is that comes out; to hear their rationale for withdrawing the applications of dozens of Black and Latino students," Driver told the crowd.
Driver asked for a public meeting to go over specific cases of Black and Latino students who were denied admission.
"This is, answer the real questions that we have. And everybody here wants to hear the answer, not just Mario [Martinez], not just some of the other students. And there's no reason in the world not to have such a meeting," says Driver.
A school administrator agreed to have a public meeting to go over specific cases of students who were denied admission.
The administrator saying, "So I think if we can get written agreement from the students to do that, I think that's something we can do."
