Affirmative action and Michigan, part two.

THE STATE OF MICHIGAN IS AT the center of a heated affirmative action debate again, except this time the judges are state residents, not black-robed jurists on the U.S. Supreme Court.

On November 7, voters in Michigan will have an opportunity to pass or nix Proposal 2, also known as the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative. The proposal would prohibit state and local governments from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to any individual or group based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the areas of public employment, contracting, and education.

The initiative to get MCRI on the ballot first emerged in 2003, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the University of Michigan could continue using race as a factor in its admissions. California businessman Ward Connerly, the figure behind similar ballot measures in California and Washington, recruited Jennifer Gratz, a lead plaintiff in one of the Michigan cases, to head up a ballot movement in the Wolverine State.

One organization, the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action by Any Means Necessary (BAMN), has tried to keep Proposal 2 off the ballot due to alleged fraud in the original gathering of petition signatures. In August, U.S. District Judge Arthur Tarnow did find "systematic voter fraud" in the petition-gathering (residents were allegedly told they were signing a petition that supported affirmative action). But he opted to keep the measure on the ballot because the fraudulent practices did not violate the federal Voting Rights Act.

High-profile individuals and groups, including Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm and University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman, have come out against Proposal 2. During a speech commemorating Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday earlier this year, Coleman noted that the proposal "is wrong-headed. It will turn our state in the wrong direction, at a time when we desperately need to recast our economy and the people who will shape it."

Notes Donna Stern, national coordinator for BAMN, the proposal would "recreate a separate and unequal two-tiered education system, and really roll back civil rights progress we've made."

Yet the group Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, which is behind Prop 2 and which shares the name of the proposal, says preferential practices amount to discrimination. Gratz, executive director of the group, sees gaps between black and white graduation rates as evidence that preferential policies don't work. "It would seem to me a university should be more concerned with who's graduating and who's getting degrees than being able to look out their window and give themselves a pat on their back because they see 'diversity' on their campuses," she says.

With Election Day nearing, whether Prop 2 will pass remains truly unclear. Residents polled in late summer were evenly split on the issue.