DAAP - OUR RECORD OF LEADERSHIP


MOBILIZING & UNITING U OF M STUDENTS
TO STAND FOR INTEGRATION & EQUALITY:

Over the past four years DAAP has played an indispensable and consistent role in mobilizing the UM campus to defend the University’s affirmative action policies.

About 3,000 U of M students came out in protest of the federal judge’s ruling at the District Court level in the U of M Law School’s affirmative action case on March 29, 2001.

On MLK Day January 20, 2003, DAAP organized college and high school students from Oakland, California, Cincinnati, to Washington, D.C. to join U of M students. We, 3,000 strong, marched through the streets of Ann Arbor demanding equality, integration, and that the Supreme Court uphold affirmative action on April 1.

FIGHTING SCAPEGOATING AND RACIAL PROFILING

DAAP spearheaded a successful campaign to stop racial profiling at the Michigan Union in the Fall of 1999. As a result of a successful student boycott of the Michigan Union, police harassment of black and Latino social events diminished.

In Fall 2001, in the wake of the rise in anti-Arab and anti-Muslim attacks on the campus and nationwide, DAAP organized thousands of students to wear green arm bands as a pledge to defend any Arab-American or other student facing racist attacks.


ORGANIZING STUDENTS ACROSS THE NATION

DAAP has successfully mobilized students across the country to stand up for equality and affirmative action.

The crowning moment and achievement for DAAP was on April 1, 2003 when we mobilized over 50,000 students and activists, including over 700 students from U of M, from all over the country for the National Civil Rights March on Washington on the day of the Supreme Court hearing on the U of M cases. This march was critical for the victory for affirmative action in Grutter v. Bollinger which maintained the use of affirmative action in higher education around the country and overturned the anti-affirmative action decisions in Texas and Georgia.

At the October and December 2001 national mobilizations to Cincinnati, Ohio for the Court of Appeals hearing in the University of Michigan affirmative action cases, over 4,000 students participated in mass rallies and marches. On May 14, the Sixth Circuit Court ruled for affirmative action, setting the stage for the Supreme Court.


PUTTING U of M AT THE CENTER OF
THE NEW CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Over the past year and a half, DAAP has been a central force in organizing three national conferences of the new civil rights movement.

The Second National Conference of the New Civil Rights Movement at U of M, February 6-8, 2002. Students who mobilized for the victorious march in Cincinnati on December 6, 2001 at the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals met once again to mobilize for the Civil Rights March on Washington April 1.

National Civil Rights Summit & Conference of the New Civil Rights Movement at U of M, January 20-26, 2003. Students, academics and civil rights leaders from across the nation gathered at U of M one last time before the U of M affirmative action cases will go to the U.S. Supreme Court. We brought Jesse Jackson, Terry O'Neil (Vice-President of NOW), Mary Frances Berry (Chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights), Cheryl Brown-Henderson (sister of Linda Brown, original plaintiffs in Brown v. Board of Education), and many others. There was democratic discussion and debate; we voted and pledged to build for the April 1 March on Washington.

PROVIDING EDUCATION & DEBATE

No entity including even the U of M administration has done more to educate U of M students on issues of race, equity, and education in the last 5 years. We have brought speakers from standardized testing experts and evolutionary biologists to renowned figures such as Jesse Jackson, Fred Shuttlesworth, Jonathan Kozol, Lani Guinier, and Bob Moses.

Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, leader along with Martin Luther King, Jr. of the pivotal 1963 Birmingham campaign that broke the back of segregation in the South, speaks at a DAAP forum on affirmative action;

Jonathan Kozol, renowned writer and author of Savage Inequalities, speaks during the symposium, Affirmative Action 102

BRINGING STUDENT VOICES TO THE COURT

DAAP was a leading force in bringing the voices of students to bear in the U of M Law School affirmative action case. As a full intervening party in the Law School case, Grutter v. Bollinger, we brought notable experts and historians on race and racism like John Hope Franklin, Eric Foner, and Walter Allen to testify in court. The student-intervenors put forward 15 witnesses, compared to the University's 6 witnesses and the plaintiffs', CIR, 3 witnesses. It was the first time in any affirmative action case that minority students who directly benefit from these programs were able to testify to their real life experiences and reality of racism in American society.

DAAP helped mobilize U of M students to attend the trial of the historic U of M Law School affirmative action case, Grutter v. Bollinger, last year and has distributed literature on the campus about the case. Members of DAAP are named student intervenors in the case and were witnesses in the trial.

 


FIGHTING SEXISM,
STANDING UP FOR WOMEN’S RIGHTS

DAAP has played a leading role in fighting sexism on campus, championing the case of Maureen Johnson, and rallying MSA support in combating sexism and violence against women on campus.

Former U of M Music School student Maureen Johnson speaks out against sexual harassment at a DAAP-sponsored Campus-wide Tribunal on Racism and Sexism. Her victory against the U of M at trial last June was a victory for all women students; it was the first time a woman student has won a case of sexual harassment against a Michigan college institution.


STOPPING THE DROP IN MINORITY ENROLLMENT

DAAP circulated a petition for a reversal in the drop in minority enrollment and handed it in to the University administration with 8,652 signatures in April 2000. The following year, for the first time in 5 years, minor enrollment increased. The campaign has been relaunched this semester, as the administration has allowed minority enrollment to drop again with this year’s incoming freshman class in wake of the Supreme Court victory upholding affirmative action.

DAAP member and student intervenor Erika Dowdell delivering petitions to then-UM President Lee Bollinger.